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COFXRIGHT DEP0SH1 



FAITH PAPERS, 

REV. S. A. KEEN, 

Author of Pentecostal Papers, Etc. 



Copyright by 

Christian Witness Co. 

1919. 



THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO., 
1410 N. La Salle St. Chicago, III. 



I3T77/ 



PREFACE 

Faith is a great subject. It is worthy of the 
most devout and patient study. We do not won- 
der that the Apostle Peter calls it "Precious 
faith." Faith moves the world. The great things 
of history have been accomplished by faith. 
Through faith the worthies "subdued kingdoms, 
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the vio- 
lence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out 
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant on 
fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 
The great life work to which we are all called, 
is to have faith in God. When his hearers asked 
the great preacher of Nazareth what they must 
do, to work the works of God, he replied, "This 
is the work of God that ye believe on him whom 
God hath sent." There is no mightier work than 
this. There is no greater life than the life of 
faith. There are no mightier achievements than 
the victories of faith. The battle of faith and 
its victories are constantly going on in the hearts 
of millions. With the shield of faith the hum- 
blest believer can ward off the fiercest attacks of 
the enemy of all souls. He can "Quench the fiery 
darts of the adversary." This little book, 
"Faith Papers," ought to be hailed with delight 
by all Christians as giving more light on the 
method of cultivating a strong faith. We all 
surely ought to desire to know all we can on 
this great subject. The author had rare in- 
sight into this fascinating subject and we may 
well be willing and even anxious to sit at his 
feet and leart* more perfectly the glorious way of 
faith. 

- cj lb/ 9 
5I.A559185 



« 
• > 



I 



PREFACE. 



These Faith Papers" are designed to 
present experimental aspects of faith. Hence, 
they are written in the terms of experience 
rather than those of doctrine. They have, 
however, as the author believes, a sound 
Scriptural and doctrinal basis. Each of these 
Papers is adapted to meet a definite soul- 
want. They are spiritual specifics for the cure 
of some form of unbelief. The first five treat 
of Saving JPaith, and the last five of Special 
Faith. The thought of these Papers was 
evolved by the author when driven to special 
prayer and searching of the Word of God in 
the midst of a continuous revival work, as a 
presiding elder in the Ohio Conference. May 
they scintillate the holy glow of the hallowed 
flame whence they sprang! These Papers 
first appeared in a now extinct periodical, 

"The Beulah Land.'' Subsequently, the first 

3 



4 FAITH PAPERS. 

five were published in tract form. The cir- 
culation of these brought so many testimoni- 
als of their helpfulness to souls, together 
with so many requests from able ministers 
and eminent Christian workers that they be 
given permanent form, and having for five 
years waited to carefully review and apply 
the faith-principles herein taught in pastoral 
evangelistic work, the author now commits 
them in this volume to the Church, devoutly 
praying that they may have the sanction of 
the Holy Spirit as they go forth to the world, 

S. A. Keen. 

Roberts Park, Indianapolis, Ind., June 1, 1888. 



Introduction 



An acquaintance with the nature of evan- 
gelical faith and the mode of its exercise is 
the most important of all knowledge. The 
deepest familiarity with politics and history, 
the profoandest intimacy with ethics and phi- 
losophy, the greatest proficiency in the arts 
and sciences, and the most brilliant exploits 
in statesmenship and military achievements, 
will fail in happif ying and saving the soul, and 
must go out in darkness without a sin-conquer- 
ing faith. To fail at the mercy-seat, where 
faith alone can succeed, is to fail everywhere 
and forever. 

Every careful reader of the Scriptures has 
not failed to notice that much greater effici- 
ency than appears in the Churches is gra- 
ciously tendered to the saints. And under 
this light the general Christian heart yearns, 
by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, to 

6 



6 FAITH PAPERS. 

realize in experience and work the Savior's 
statement, "He that belie veth on me, the 
works that I do shall he do also ; and greater 
works than these shall he do." All earnest 
Christians long for this gift, but, through spir- 
itual blindness, many are searching for it 
where it can never be found. It is not to be 
found in travel amidst classic ruins, nor in 
the learning furnished by the schools of phi- 
losophy, nor the knowledge obtained in the 
seminaries of theology, nor yet in the wisdom 
of methods and plans. Nothing succeeds 
here but that meek, lowly, and humble faith 
discussed in these pages, and which unites 
its subjects to the risen, glorified, and al- 
mighty Christ. Hence any effort that prom- 
ises success in spreading the knowledge of this 
all-important grace ought to have the encour- 
agement and support of the universal Church. 
Great numbers who read the "Faith 
Papers," as they appeared in the different 
issues of the now extinct Beulah Land, tes- 
tified to their great worth and the bene^t 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

which they received from them, and congrat- 
ulated the author upon his happy method of pre- 
senting and elucidating the subject of faith. 
Now that these "papers" are to be given to 
the Church in a more durable form, and with 
conditions for much wider distribution, it is 
gratifying to know that they must enter 
upon a much larger mission of usefulness. 

The subject is so thoroughly analyzed, the 
points are so well taken, the different phases 
of the grace so well illustrated, and all 
brought into such narrow compass, that the 
mass of Christian readers can command the 
work, can understand the subject, and must 
be greatly edified and helped in the spiritual 
life by the perusal of the book. The author, 
and the friends of wholesome religious litei 
ature, may feel assured that He who guided 
in writing the "papers," has His hands also 
upon their publication and circulation, and 
will glorify Himself by this contribution to 
the means of Christian enlightment. 
Coshocton. O. SHERIDAN Baker. 






Table of Contents. 



PAPER FIRST. Page. 

The Way to Faith ; or When to Believe, ... 9 

PAPER SECOND. 
The Way op Faith ; or, What to Believe, . . 20 

PAPER THIRD. 
The Way op Faith ; or, How to Believe, ... 29 

v PAPER FOURTH. 
The Witness op Faith ; Its Elements, .... 42 

PAPER FIFTH. 

The Witness op Faith ; Its Experience, ... 55 

PAPER SIXTH. 
The Fullness of Faith ; Its Characteristics. - 69 

PAPER SEVENTH. 
The Fullness of Faith ; Its Effects, .... 82 

PAPER EIGHTH. 
The Fullness of Faith ; Its Attainment, ... 96 

PAPER NINTH. 
The Gift op Faith, . 108 

PAPER TENTH.. 
The Prayer op Faith, . . . . . ... 126 

8 





Pkpef #i#t 



THE WAY TO FAITH. 

Romans xi, I : "I beseech you therefore, brethren. 
by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a liv- 
ing sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your 
reasonable service. ,, 

There are states of heart which render 
faith impossible. An impenitent heart, a will- 
ful heart, or an unconsecrated heart, is incapa- 
ble of believing unto salvation. To say to a 
soul in the heyday of sin, or to an unawak- 
ened heart, or to an enlighted child of God 
who refuses to give himself wholly to the 
Lord, "Believe, and thou shalt be saved/ is 
to expect him to do what he can not do. 
His state of heart is obstructive to faith. No 
man can believe unto salvation when he will, 

9 



10 FAITH PAPERS. 

irrespective of his condition of heart. There 
are essential antecedents to the exercise of 
faith. There are states of heart which lead 
to faith. The attainment of these is the 
way to faith. There are two steps to faith 
for a soul under gospel illumination. 

The first is conviction. Only the soul 
that is feelingly conscious of its unsaved con- 
dition, its spiritual destitution, and its utter 
moral helplessness is capable of laying hold 
of the promises of God so as to rest in them 
alone for salvation. Inwrought conviction 
makes the soul reach out beyond itself for 
help, and makes it willing to accept the Divine 
Word as its sure support against despair. 
Such conviction, either for the guilt of sin or 
the presence of inbred sin in the soul, as 
brings a sense of extreme need of salvation, 
is the heart-pang by which faith is begotten. 
When such a crisis of conviction is reached, 
faith becomes such a necessity to the soul that 
it must believe. In the distress of such spir- 
itual emergency, it instinctively cries out: 



THE WAY TO FAITH. il 

"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." 
It was in the throes of heart-rending convic- 
tion that the jailer at Philippi believed and was 
saved. Never did Dr. Adam Clarke believe 
unto full salvation until his soul became so 
agonizingly conscious of inbred sin, and so 
painfully desirous for deliverance from it, as 
that he felt he must believe and be saved, or 
superadd to his sin of heart the condemna- 
tion and darkness of unbelief. This first step 
in the way to faith is a short one ; it may be 
quickly taken. Do you say: "I am waiting 
for conviction ?" Then* it will never come ; 
it never comes to those who are waiting for 
it. It only comes to those who want it, who 
invite it, who seek it. Any one who accepts 
God's Word as the voice of the Holy Spirit 
speaking to him, if he is either an unforgiven 
sinner or an unsanctified believer, can in a 
little while be filled with so much conviction 
as will make him long for salvation more than 
they who watch for the morning. Let the 
impenitent soul come face to face with a few 



12 FAITH PAPERS. 

of God's commands and appeals, such as 
" Turn ye, why will ye die?" " Be ye also 
ready," "The wages of sin is death," "He 
that believeth not shall be damned," and 
take them to heart as his, and he will very 
soon have such a sense of lostness as will make 
him cry out, I must, I will believe. Let a be- 
liever who is not fully saved think upon the 
words of the Lord, * ' Be ye holy, for I am 
holy," "Without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord," "Wash you, make you clean," 
and there will come to his heart such a sense 
of unlikeness to God and unfitness for heaven 
as will make him cry out, * * O wretched man 
that I am, who shall deliver me from this 
body of death?" and will bring him where 
faith must lend its victorious power. We 
challenge any truly converted person who is 
walking in the light of the witness of the 
Holy Spirit to his acceptance with God, but 
has not the witness of heart-purity, and is 
skeptical in respect to the existence of inbred 
sin in the soul and the need of full salvation, 



THE WAY TO FAITH. 13 

to consent to such a divine inspection as Da- 
vid subjected himself to when he laid bare 
his heart unto the eyes of him with whom we 
have to do, and said: " Search me, O God, 
and know my heart ; try me and know my 
thoughts, and see if there be in me any 
wicked way." He will not have waited long 
in that powerful light until he will begin to 
plead, " Create in me a clean heart, O God," 
and will be ready to receive entire sanctifica- 
tion by faith. 

A few years since I had in one of my 
Churches a class-leader. He was an excellent 
man ; but in some way he had become pro- 
nounced in his skepticism respecting, and his 
opposition to, the experience of entire sancti- 
fication. He thought the doctrine of sin in 
believers a mere fancy. He was doubtless 
honest in all his misconceptions and unbelief. 
It was all the more difficult to bring him to a 
right way of thinking, for he was useful and 
consistent in his life. I yearned to see him 
brought into the fullness of God's love. We 



14 FAITH PAPERS, 

never argued or contended together on the 
subject. We lived and labored together in 
love. About a year and a half after I became 
his pastor we were having an evening meeting 
at v.iich were present over two hundred of 
my members. The theme turned on heart- 
searching. After some remarks to the effect 
that we are incapable to search our own 
hearts, that God alone can search the heart 
and bring to the light of our consciousness 
what of evil or good may be hidden from our 
most careful introspection, I proposed that 
we all bow before God and silently wait for 
such revelation respecting our hearts as he 
might give while we should breathe into his 
ear the prayer: M Search me, O God." Every 
person in the congregation bowed, this beloved 
leader with the rest. No one led in prayer; 
each went to God for himself. In a few min- 
utes sobs began to rise, first from one pew, then 
from another. The whole lecture-room be- 
came a Bochim, a valley of weeping. Having 
remained about ten minutes upon our knees, 



THE WAY TO FAITH. 15 

we arose. I said : ' ' If any one has discov* 
ered any thing in your heart that has surprised 
you and that is painful to yourself, you may 
speak of it." Instantly this class leader arose 
and exclaimed, "O, my heart, my heart! 
1 never knew that all this was in my heart ; 
pray for me," and fell upon his knees in the 
pew where he was standing. A season ot 
prayer was held at once. A few days after, 
he found perfect cleansing from the sin which 
he had seen in his heart. Within six months 
after, on his dying bed, he constantly repeated : 

"The cleansing stream, I see, I see! 
I plunge, and O, it cleanseth me." 

He was not too swift in seeking a conscious- 
ness of indwelling sin and inward cleansing 
from it. They who would have a conscious 
sense of the guilt or the defilement of sin, 
without which they can not believe unto sal- 
vation, can soon attain it. The preaching, 
the Christian testimony, and godly admoni- 
tions which bring the most immediate and 
powerful conviction for outward and inward 



16 FAITH PAPERS. 

sin, will bring forth the most immediate fruit 
of faith. 

The second step in the way to faith is 
consecration. To the awakened sinner this 
means self- surrender to God. He chooses his 
service, bows to his yoke, and cries: " I am 
thine; take me as I am." When this is ac- 
complished, believing ground is reached 
where the soul easily and almost impercepti- 
bly believes and is saved ; though sometimes 
there is a struggle to believe after the sur- 
render is complete, because Satan makes a 
powerful stand at this point against the soul, 
because one more step is to bring it out of his 
captivity. But the soul has come to the 
position that commands faith, and here it can 
rout the adversary by a desperate act of faith 
in saying: "I can, I will, I do believe/' 

To the believer that is seeking heart-purity 
this consecration means complete self-dedica- 
tion to God. Without this, faith for cleansing 
is impossible. To attempt to believe unto 
full salvation until all is put upon the altar 



THE WA Y TO FAITH. 17 

of God, is useless effort and wasted time. 
When I was seeking a clean heart, the 
moment I got the consent of my heart to say, 
"I am thine, wholly thine for evermore," 
believing that the blood cleansed and that 
the altar sanctified, followed immediately and 
naturally. And I have never found any diffi- 
culty as I have walked in the way of holiness 
in believing, when I have been conscious of 
being wholly the Lord's. 

We are so slow to take the final step of 
consecration. We hesitate and shrink from 
letting all go on to the altar which sanctifies 
the gift. Consecration is the offering of our- 
selves up to God according to his word. It 
need not take long — it should not. Satan 
may say, "God requires more than you can 
give or do, your children, your property, 
your life;" reply: "God only requires what 
is best. He only demands a reasonable 
service." 

The adversary will argue : "It is hard 
to give all to God." Joyfully rejoin: " His 



18 FAITH PAPERS. 

commandments are not grievous, and in 
keeping of them there is great delight.' O 
soul, convinced of the need of heart cleansing, 
remember, if it be hard to the natural heart 
to give all to God, that it will prove harder 
yet to not make the consecration. 

Said a sister to me, as her pastor : "I 
ought to wholly consecrate myself to God, 
but I can't." I replied: M Don't say you 
can't, but you won't." "Yes," she replied, 
"that is it; but I mean it is so hard." 
"True," said I; "but it is harder not to do 
it. Do it, and God will dwell in your heart, 
bless your home, and lead your children to 
salvation ; but do it not, darkness will come 
to your soul, your children will grow up 
irreligious, and, po3sibly, you yourself wjll lie 
down and die without the hope of heaven." 
She refused to make the consecration, and my 
words proved prophetic. All the appre- 
hended evils suggested came, and more ; and 
suddenly one day she dropped out of life. 
O, how much harder it proved to her, as it 



THE WA Y TO FAITH. 19 

will to any soul, not to consecrate itself to 
God, than to give all to him wholly ! 

Dear reader, do you long to know the 
faith that brings full salvation. At once present 
yourself a living sacrifice to God, under the 
conscious need you feel to be cleansed from 
all sin, and you may at once believe unto 
righteousness. Do the eyes of any one fall 
upon these words, whose heart is sore with 
the unrest, the ache, the fearfulness of con- 
viction for sin, and you are offering yourself 
up to God in complete consecration? You 
need wait no longer, only believe, resolutely 
trust the immutable word of the Lord, and 
your heart shall joyously shout : 

" Hallelujah ! 't is done, I believe on the Son ; 
I am saved by the blood of the crucified One.* 



Pkpef $e(5ond. 



THE WAY OF FAITH 

WHA/T TO BELIEVE, 

Romans x, 8: "The word is nigh thee, even in 
thy mouth and in thy heart : that is, the word of faith 
which we preach." 

The thing to be believed, in seeking salva- 
tion, either in pardon or entire sanctification, 
is the Word of God, especially as embodied 
in the exceeding great and precious promises 
of the Bible. For this reason the apostle 
Paul calls it (Rom. x, 8) the word of faith; 
that is, the word to be believed, and which, 
when believed, brings salvation. Often 
earnest seekers of salvation are exhorted to 
believe, to trust ; just what they are most 
anxious to do, but they do not know what to 
believe. Hence their efforts to believe are like 

beating the air ; they do not bring salvation. 
20 



THE WA Y OF FAITH. 21 

What all seekers need to have made known to 
them is, that the thing they are to believe is 
the Word of God. It is the only sufficient 
ground of faith; it is the "word of faith:" 
whosoever believes it shall be saved. 

When a boy thirteen years of age, I 
became deeply convicted of sin, and earnestly 
anxious to be saved. I went to an altar of 
prayer in the midst of a glorious revival of 
religion in my native town. There for three 
nights I sought the Lord in the pardon of my 
sins. All who spoke to me told me to believe, 
and nothing was I more anxious to do than to 
believe ; yet no one told me what to believe. 
I presume they thought I knew ; but I did 
not. Finally, on the third night of my 
struggle, an old saint of God came to me, and 
laying his patriarchal hands upon my head, as 
I bowed there bewildered and almost dis- 
heartened, he said: "Son, Jesus says if you 
come to him, he will receive you and save 
you ; believe his word, and you shall be 
saved." I did it instantly, and as instantly 



22 FAITH PAPERS. 

the peace of pardon and the joy of salvation 
filled my soul. Just so soon as I knew what 
to believe, I did it quickly, and was saved. 
Praise the Lord, for the word of faith, which, 
when believed, brings salvation ! 

A few years since, a college friend, a 
graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University, 
was bowing with many others as a seeker of 
full salvation. His conviction of inbred sin 
was pungent, and his struggle intense for 
deliverance from it. As I knelt by him to 
encourage and instruct him, he said: "0, 
give me a promise, give me a promise !" 
He seemed to know that he must believe 
God's Word in order to be saved fully, but 
Satan was just then so darkening his mind 
that his memory could not recall any one of 
its many precious promises, although he was 
well versed in the Scriptures, and was a 
superior Bible-class teacher. I repeated in 
his ear, as he was begging for a promise, 
this : i i Wherefore he is able also to save 
them to the uttermost that come unto God by 



THE WA Y OF FAITH. 23 

him." (Heb. vii, 25.) The words were 
scarcely off my lips before he exclaimed : 
4 4 That is what I wanted ; I believe it ; praise 
the Lord, O my soul, I am fully saved." Ever 
since he has known the joy of a full salva- 
tion. This "word of faith" is sufficient. It 
is the word of the Lord, more immutable 
than the stars in their celestial order, or the 
eternal hills in their grand repose. " Heaven 
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall 
not pass away." This word is indorsed to us 
in the name of Jesus, written in his own 
blood. "All the promises of God in him are 
yea y and in him are amen!" This word is 
the very voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to 
our hearts. Whosoever believes it shall not 
be confounded. 

" How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word !" 

This "word of faith" is available. It is 
"nigh thee," says the apostle, "even in thy 
mouth and in thy heart." It is the truth 
our minds have accepted and our lips have 



24 FAITH PAPERS. 

professed, but which we have been slow 
to believe as the very word of God. There is 
not a gospel-enlightened soul, either sinner 
or believer, but knows and has in his heart 
the word of truth, which is able to make him 
wise unto salvation. The word to be believed 
has been put in our mouths and lodged in 
our hearts by the instructions of home, or the 
teachings of the Sabbath-school, or the 
preaching of a living ministry. It is at hand. 
No new revelation, or interpretation, or 
further light of the Holy Spirit is essential to 
faith. The word is "nigh" us, even within 
us. Whosoever will believe shall be saved. 
This " word of faith " is effectual. Believed, 
it is found to be spirit and life. As chemical 
action immediately ensues when the proper 
fluids come in contact with the proper metals 
in the electrical jar, producing the ethereal 
fiery current, so the moment the soul believes 
the word of faith, spiritual action ensues ; 
life, light, warmth, rest, satisfaction, instantly 
possess the heart. The full virtue of the 






THE WA Y OF FAITH: 25 

word of faith passes at once into the soul 
when touched by its faith. The word when 
believed is immediately the power of God unto 
salvation to the soul. 

If the word believed be, " He is just and 
faithful to forgive us our sins," the peace of 
pardon is at once realized. If it be, i ' Hav- 
ing these promises, let us cleanse ourselves 
from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, per- 
fecting holiness in the fear of the Lord," 
trusted, immediately 

u Refining fire goes through the heart, 
Illuminates the soul ; 
Scatters its life through every part, 
And sanctifies the whole." 

Or, should the word accepted in faith be, 
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost," the pente- 
costal power suddenly fills the soul. 

When, therefore, we believe the word of 
faith, simultaneously therewith is effectuated 
in us all the salvation, power, and blessed- 
ness proffered to us in the exceeding great 
and precious promises of God. For when 
received, not as the word of men, but as it is 



26 FAITH PAPERS. 

in truth, the word of God, it effectually 
worketh in them that believe. (See I Thess. 
ii, 13.) This has been verified times without 
number by God's children. Our peace is in 
believing ; according to our faith it is done unto 
us ; to them that believe, he is precious as a 
justifier, or sanctifier, or anointer, with power. 
Mrs. Phoebe Palmer was wont to say : 
44 The Holy Spirit speaks to my heart by the 
Word, and when I believe it, I at once 
experimentally apprehend, as Jesus has said, 
that his words are spirit and life." Like 
effectual is the Word in any soul when be- 
lieved by it. 

" Faith the mighty promise sees, 
And looks to that alone ; 
Laughs at impossibilities, 
And cries: ' Hallelujah,' 't is done I" 

A sufferer who was rapidly declining 
under the progress of a painful disease, and 
had been earnestly seeking for the white 
robes of entire cleansing from sin in her 
heart, in which to meet the King in his 



\ 



THE WAY TO FAITH. 27 

beauty without abashment, said to me, as I 
entered her sick-room one morning: "Last 
night the Holy Spirit threw out to me a line 
of promise. I seized it, and I am now glori- 
ously saved." Her abundant entrance into 
life eternal, a few weeks later, proved that 
her confidence in "the word of faith " was 
not misplaced, but brought the true end of 
faith, even the salvation of her soul. So it is 
ever ; just when the trembling sinner puts 
faith in some sweet promise of God's Word, 
he finds it 

"A sure support against despair.'* 
The moment the child of God, seeking full 
redemption in the blood of the Lamb, begins 

to sing, 

"In the promises I trust," 

in the same breath will continue : 

u Now I feel the blood applied ;" 
"Jesus saves, he saves me now." 

Dear reader, having come to the fountain 
of cleansing by a complete dedication of 
your soul and life to God, the way into its 



28 FAITH PAPERS. 

crimson flood is the way of faith ; and the 
way of faith is to believe the Word of God; 
that is, accept it as true to yourself. The 
Holy Spirit now declares, "The blood of 
Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, ,, and prom- 
ises that according to your faith it shall be 
unto you. Dear soul, at once respond, 

" Lord, I believe thy every word, 
Thy every promise true/' 

and you shall know the joy of entire sancti- 
fication by faith alone. As you lay down 
this paper, may you at once enter the ' * way 
of faith," which is believing God's word ! 



f ) kpei< T^iM 



THE WAY OF FAITH. 

HOW TO BELIEVE. 
"All things are possible to him that believeth." 

The faith which saves the soul is believing 
what God says, and believing it because he 
says it. " Abraham believed God, and it was 
counted to him for righteousness. " When 
God told him he was going to give him a son, 
Abraham, without any outward proof and 
" against hope," chose to believe God because 
he had said it, and according to his faith it 
was done unto him. God's word is his testi- 
mony concerning the divine purpose to save 
the soul that believeth in Jesus. "If we 
receive the witness of men (which we do), 
the witness of God is greater ; for this is the 
witness of God which he hath testified of his 

Son. He that believeth on the Son of God 

29 



30 FAITH PAPERS. 

hath the witness in himself; he that believeth 
not, God hath made him a liar, because he 
believeth not the record that God gave of his 
Son." You say: " I know what is to be be- 
lieved; that the infallible word of God is the 
sole ground of faith." But you ask: '* Can I 
trust the word of the Lord ?" 

Does not the inquiry sound sacrilegious ? 
and does not the echo of it almost startle 
you ? Why can 't a human heart trust the 
word of the Lord, if it will ? God certainly 
does not enjoin as a sole condition of salva- 
tion a thing which it is impossible for us to 
perform. There is only one state of heart in 
which it is impossible for it to believe the 
word of God, and that is when it is unwilling 
to submit to God. The soul that gives 
itself up to God can believe his word, if it 
chooses to do so. But you say: "I have 
thought that saving faith is the gift of God." 
Then, you have thought wrong ; for such 
/s not the teaching of the Bible. It does 
say that "Ye are saved by grace through 



THE WA Y OF FAITH. 31 

faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the 
gift of God." But this teaches that the whole 
scheme of redemption — that of salvation by 
faith — is by the gracious favor of God, and 
not that the faith by which salvation is secured 
is the gift of God. Saving faith is not the gift 
of God in any proper sense. 

The ability to believe, the power to trust 
God, belongs to every man, through the 
involuntary help of t K e Holy Spirit, vouch- 
safed by the atonement. But the exercise of 
this gracious capability devolves upon u? 
We have the power to believe, and have pre 
sented us the word of God, which is to be 
believed ; and when we choose to believe that 
word, that is faith. 

Saving faith is not a gracious state of the 
heart wrought by some sovereign power of 
the Holy Spirit ; nor is saving faith a kind of 
an entity, a tangible something God bestows 
upon the heart, and then, in view of its pres- 
ence in the soul, sends salvation. To expect 
God to give us faith in this sense is a forlorn 



32 FAITH PAPERS. 

hope, though we may pray for it ; for faith 
is our own act. No one, not even God, can 
perform it for us. It is not a thing that can 
be given us ; it is a thing to be done by us. 

A few years since, during the progress of 
a revival in one of my churches, there was a 
man who had for twenty years been a regular 
attendant upon the services of a certain Chris- 
tian Church ; he was exemplary in his moral- 
ity, had a warm feeling for God's people, 
and was a great Bible student. All during 
these years he had wanted to be saved, but 
taaving gotten the wrong notion that the faith 
which saves is the gift of God, he had been 
vaiting for God to give him faith so that he 
could be saved. He was sitting one evening 
in my church while an interesting service was 
going on. I had occasion to remark, during 
its progress : ' i Jesus says, ' Trust me, I will 
save you;' and you say, 'I can trust thee, 
precious Savior ; thou hast died for me/" 
That single remark led him to see that he had 
been waiting for faith to be given him, while 



THE WA Y OF FAITH, 33 

Jesus had been waiting all these years for him 
to put faith in Him. I knew nothing of what 
was then transpiring in his mind until the 
service was through. After which he came 
up to me, his face bright, and taking my 
hand, he said: "Jesus has saved me!" I 
said: "When?" "0, just a few minutes 
ago. I have been wanting to be saved for 
twenty years, but have been waiting for God 
to give me faith ; and when you said, * Jesus 
says, " Trust me, and I will save you," ' I saw 
that for twenty years I had been waiting for 
God to put faith into me, when he had been 
waiting all these years for me to put faith in 
his word." He was very happy. It was the 
day of salvation to him. 

It is a cheat of Satan to keep souls seek- 
ing salvation, either in conversion or entire 
sanctification, from the blessing they desire, 
by persuading them that they can 't believe, 
and that God must give them faith before 
they can believe. 

The soul can believe God. He has not 

3 



34 FAITH PAPERS. 

fixed an unreasonable and impossible condition 
of salvation when he says : ' ' Believe, and 
thou shalt be saved.' ' He only requires what 
we can perform. 

Faith being the exercise of the power we 
possess to believe God's word, it is a volun- 
tary act. The soul must recognize that it can 
believe ; must choose to believe ; must say, 
"I will believe ;" and persistently reckon 
pardon or purity its own on God's word, in 
the face of every temptation to doubt, aris ; ng 
from any source whatever. In every struggle 
for salvation the soul will believe something : 
it will either believe the word of the Lo^d as 
whispered to it by the Holy Spirit, or t will 
believe the word of Satan whispered oy his 
tempting voice. At every stage in seeking 
the Lord there is either defeat in believing 
Satan, or victory in believing Jesus. Faith is 
believing God. Doubt is believing Satan. 
We can resist a temptation to doubt, just as 
we can a temptation to envy, revenge, or 
uncharitableness. When the tempter says to 



THE WA T OF FAITH. 35 

the child of God who has been unjustly 
treated, " Seek revenge, " " Be unforgiving/' 
"Demand redress/' let him say: "Get 
behind me. Satan, thou art an offense unto 
me ; I will not indulge in envy or ill-will ; I 
will not cherish bitterness." Thus resisting 
the devil, through the Holy Spirit helping 
him, Satan will flee from him, and he is kept 
from falling into sin and marring his com- 
munion with God. So when Satan comes to 
the heart seeking salvation, and tempts it to 
doubt, saying, "You can 't be saved; you 
are too bad, or have waited too long, or you 
can 't keep salvation if you find it ;" the soul 
thus buffeted by Satan must resist these 
insinuations of the adversary by clinging to 
the word of the Lord, which is able to save 
all them that believe it ; and Satan will depart, 
leaving the soul in a sweet repose of trust 
and the consciousness of a precious salvation. 
One evening, years since, I was called to 
visit a woman, well on in years, who was 
thought to be rapidly sinking under a very 



36 FAITH PAPERS. 

painful disease. She had been a stranger to 
me. On entering her room and taking her 
by the hand, I said: "How are you?" 
"O," she said, "I am suffering so; every 
nerve seems to be on fire, and I am not 
saved! O, I am so miserable!" The lines 
of suffering and despair blended together in 
her face. I said : "Are you asking the Lord 
to help you?" "O yes," she replied, "but 
Jesus does n't help me. Sometimes it seems 
as though I am going to be saved, and it 
begins to get a little light; then something 
says, 'Jesus won't save you/ and then it gets 
so dark." I said: "Mother, do you know 
when you begin to feel that Jesus is going to 
save you that it is because you begin to be- 
lieve the words of Jesus which say, ' If you 
trust me I will save you ;' then Satan begins 
to say, 'Jesus won't save you,' and you 
begin to believe Satan, and it gets so dark 
with you ? Now, mother, when Satan says 
this, you say, 'Jesus will save me, for he 
says so, and I will believe him;' and reject 



THE WA Y OF FAITH. 37 

the words of Satan. Doing this, the clouds 
will lift from your soul, and you will be 
saved." She was silent for a moment or two, 
and tli en calling to her daughter, who was in 
an adjoining room, she said: "Come here, 
daughter." Her daughter, half frightened, 
thinking she might be worse, hurried to her 
bedside. She exclaimed : "O, daughter! I 
am saved ! All my darkness is gone, and my 
pains are gone ; I am so happy ! I just quit 
believing Satan, and O, Jesus has come to 
me!" Her joy was unspeakable. Her pains 
returned, but not her fears. 

Within five minutes she came into a sweet, 
abiding faith by resisting the temptations of 
the adversary to doubt the word of the Lord. 
So when Satan contradicts your seeking heart, 
saying, "You can't believe," "Jesus won't 
save you," resent this falsehood and say: 

" I can, I will, I do believe 
That Jesus saves me now.'* 

Are you a seeker of pardon ? Take some 
promise of God's Word ; make up your mind 



38 FAITH PAPERS. 

to believe it ; say to yourself, what God says 
is true, whether you feel it to be so or not. 
God says: "If we confess our sins, he is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. " You 
say, in the response of faith: "Lord, I 
choose to believe this ; I will believe this ; 1 
do believe I am saved." And when Satan 
says- as he is most likely to do, "How do 
you know you are saved? do you feel it?" 
answer boldly : ' ' No, I do not feel it at all ; 
but it is so, for God says so ; and I would 
rather trust his Word than my own feelings, 
however joyous." Resting thus unwaveringly 
on God's Word, though tempted by the ad- 
versary that your faith is not real, you will 
not wait long before the peace of pardon and 
the witness of acceptance will be given you. 
Are you a child of God seeking full salva- 
tion ? Seize upon some declaration of God's 
Word, such as ' ' The blood of Jesus Christ, 
his Son, cleanseth from all sin ;" apply it to 
your own heart ; confess to yourself, to Satan, 
and to God, that it is true to you, even you, 



s 



THE WA Y OF FAITH. 39 

because the Lord hath spoken it; refuse to 

Jister? to the lying voice of Satan that it is 

not so. Let no inward feeling or outward 

sign dissuade you from your voluntary choice 

to count God's Word true to yourself. And 

according to such a faith it shall be done unto 

you. What every seeking soul needs most 

to know is that it can believe unto salvation 

if it will ; and that choosing to count GodY 

Word as true in the face of every temptation 

to distrust it, is faith. Have you given all td 

Christ? Are you now longing to be fully 

saved ? Are you persuaded that 

ilf T is the promise of God 
Full salvation to give 
Unto him who on Jesus, 
His Son, will believe ?" 

You may at once begin to sing : 

" I can, I will, I do believe 
That Jesus saves me now." 

Should we lose every other line from the 

volumes of sacred song now extant and this 

latter couplet remain, we could sing the world 
to pardon and the Church to purity. It 



40 FAITH PAPERS. 

contains the rationale, and expresses the pro- 
gress of faith from its beginning to its consum- 
mation. About a year since there was a lady 
who had been seeking the Lord for many 
months, but not finding the light, warmth, 
and rest of conscious salvation, had become 
so much discouraged that she had no heart to 
come forward longer to the altar of prayer. 
One evening she was sitting in her pew, dark 
and sad in her heart. An interesting conse- 
cration service was going on, in the midst of 
which was sung the chorus: 

" I can, I will, I do believe 
That Jesus saves me now." 

It had been repeated several times in connec- 
tion with stanzas of that grand old salvation 

hymn : 

"Alas ! and did my Savior bleed." 

As the melody of its simple music reiterated 
it in her ears and heart, it came to her in 
power, and she began to say to herself: 
"Why, yes, I can ; why should n't I believe 
the Lord? I will ; yes, I may, if I will. I 



THE WA Y OF FAITH. 41 

do; yes, I do believe that Jesus saves me 
now/ 1 It was done. She was saved. Her 
soul was exulting in the Lord. 

The method of faith is for the soul to recog- 
nize that it can believe God's word, then 
choose to believe it, which always carries it 
over to the consciousness: "I do believe." 
Believing is our part, and is antecedent ; sav- 
ing is God's part, and is consequent. All 
the blessed effects of faith, pardon, adoption, 
entire sanctification, are the Lord's doings, 
and are marvelous in our eyes ; and they are 
all possible to him that believeth on the Son 
of God. Dear reader, as you lay down this 
paper, say: "Lord, I believe." 

11 Thou dost this moment save, 
With full salvation bless." 

Glory to the Lamb ! 



fkpef SWth. 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 

ITS KLKlSrlKIsnrS. 

i John v, io: "He that believeth en the Son of 
Gcd hath the witness in himself. " 

The witness which the soul may have as- 
suring it of salvation is twofold: 1st. The wit- 
ness of faith; 2d. The witness of the Holy Spirit. 
By the mouth of these two witnesses, every 
soul is to be established in saving grace. The 
witness of faith is antecedent ; the witness of 
the Holy Spirit subsequent. These two wit- 
nesses are concurrent. They bear testimony 
to salvation. The witness of faith is the con- 
scious reception of salvation; the witness of 
the Holy Spirit is the conscious realization of 
salvation. 

A gentleman fell heir very unexpectedly 

to an immense fortune. He could hardly be- 
42 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH, 43 

lieve that so much wealth had been bequeathed 
him. The legal papers were presented him, 
and on their testimony he accepted, received 
the bequest as his own, but could not realize 
that he was rich — made so in a moment. 
When, however, he began to handle the 
moneys, and count the stocks, and control the 
lands into the possession of which he had 
come, then came to him the realization that he 
was rich, that he was a millionaire. The or- 
der of his experience was, first, the witness 
of faith ; that is, the conscious reception of 
all this wealth on the testimony of the legal 
evidence. Then followed the conscious reali- 
zation that he was, indeed, munificently en- 
dowed. So when the soul believes the 
exceeding great and precious promises of 
God's Word — that is, consciously accepts the 
heavenly treasure of salvation — it has the wit- 
ness of faith ; it knows that it does receive 
salvation. But when the preciousness of this 
pearl of great price, the joy of the possession 
of this found treasure, the sweetness of saving 






44 FAITH PAPERS. 

power received, is consciously realized, it has 
the witness of the Holy Spirit. 

The witness of faith is the John the Bap- 
tist which heralds and introduces the mightier 
witness of the Holy Spirit which cometh after 
it. The elements of the witness of faith are: 

I. The soul's conscious acceptance of God s 
Word as true to itself ; that is, the soul, irre- 
spective of any outward sign or inward feel- 
ing, without any inner light or warrant, or 
witness previously given, accepts salvation on 
God's Word alone ; it counts true to itself the 
promise, that whosoever believeth on the Son 
shall be saved. It does not ask that the in- 
fallible Word of the Lord, which shall endure, 
though heaven and earth pass away, shall be 
corroborated by any collateral surety. It ac- 
cepts the Word as so sure and effective, as 
that all confirmation of its verity is not only 
unnecessary, but would be sacrilegious, if 
desired. 

There is a beautiful incident in the life of 
Ahaz, king of Judah, which illustrates how 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 45 

faith accepts the Word of the Lord as true, 
and disdains any collateral security. The 
kings of Syria and Israel had entered into a 
formidable alliance against Ahaz, and moved 
their combined forces against his capital, Je- 
rusalem. When this was told Ahaz and his 
people, there was great consternation in the 
palace and the capital. "The heart of Ahaz 
and the heart of his people was moved as the 
trees of the wood are moved with the wind." 
In the midst of this crisis the prophet Isaiah 
was sent by the Lord to say to Ahaz : ' 4 Take 
heed and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint- 
hearted, because Syria and Ephraim have 
taken evil counsel against thee. It shall not 
stand ; neither shall it come to pass. If ye 
will not believe, ye shall not be established/ ' 
At that moment the old king set his heart to 
believe the promise of the Lord which had 
just been given him, and accepted it as true 
to him and his capital. 

Then the Lord spake to Ahaz and said to 
him : "Ask a .sign ; ask it either in the depths, 



46 FAITH PAPERS. 

or in the heights above.* ' It was as though 
God had said to him, I will give you addi- 
tional assurance, if you desire it. This was 
really a test of his faith ; for faith is not made 
perfect, if the heart seeks something more 
than the Word of the Lord to command its 
confidence. The genuineness of Ahaz's faith 
then asserted itself, and he said in holy con- 
fidence : " I will not ask " (a sign) ; I ask no 
collateral security to God's Word ; no sweep- 
ing whirlwind, or crashing earthquake, or de- 
scending fire do I ask ; it is the Word of the 
Lord, and it shall come to pass. 

But how many seeking hearts, to whom 
God has given his Word, that according to 
their faith it shall be done unto them, ask a 
sign, a warmth, a light, a witness, or some 
other inward phenomenon, before they are 
ready to accept the Word of the Lord as true ; 
but none is ever given. Whoever consciously 
accepts the Word of the Lord as true to him- 
self, will have the witness of faith in himself 
to his salvation. 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 47 

-A. professor in a university on the Pacific 
Coast Had been for ten years a seeker of full 
salvation, but did not come into its enjoyment. 
One day an aged minister, traveling in the in- 
teiest of the American Bible Society, was 
stopping at his home. They fell into conver- 
sation on Christian experience. This aged 
minister told how many years since he had 
found, and been able to walk in conscious 
cleansing from all sin. The professor listened 
with interest, and when the old saint was 
through, he said to him: " Father, I have 
been seeking that blessing for ten years. I 
believe I have put all on the altar, and that I 
live v/ith all on the altar; but I haven't re- 
ceived the power of sanctifying grace in my 
souJ." Said the aged brother : ' i Do you want 
to receive it now?" The professor replied: 
"Yes." "Well," said the minister, "let us 
kneel down right here, and you may receive 
it now." One who has received full salvation, 
knows it may be received right away. The 
fully saved soul is very alert, and precipitous 



48 FAITH PAPERS. 

in its faith. They had been sitting side by 
side in the professor's parlor. The professor 
was a little reluctant to believe that the strug- 
gle of ten years could end right away. He 
doubtless thought the old man very sanguine. 
But they knelt together. "Now," said the 
minister, " Professor, are you wholly given to 
God?" and with much tenderness and honesty 
of heart, he said: "I believe I am." "You 
have put all on the altar ?" "Yes." " Well, 
Professor, the Lord says, ' The altar sanctifieth 
the gift;' is it true or not?" He dare not 
tempt God, and say it is not, and with a fal- 
tering, and almost coerced faith, he said, "// 
is true y " and instantly the refining fire went 
through his soul. 

The conscious acceptance of the Word of 
God as true to itself, by the soul, is charac- 
teristic of the witness of faith. 

II. The conscious commitment of the saving 
work to Christ: 

When the soul consciously relinquishes its 
own efforts to save itself, and puts itself to be 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 49 

saved into the hands of Him who came to save 
it, and does this so really to itself, that it dis- 
misses all concern for its salvation ; not that 
it feels that it is saved, but because it knows 
that it has committed itself unto him whose 
sole business is to redeem from ail iniquity, it 
has the witness of faith. 

Not long since, a gentleman, a comparative 
stranger to me, but who had reasonable evi- 
dence of my integrity, said to me: "I have 
been owing a gentleman in the town in which 
you live, seventy-five dollars. I want to pay 
it, but can not leave my home to do so. 
Will you take the money to him ?" I said : 4 * I 
will." He handed me the amount. When 
I took it, I saw an expression of relief come 
to his face, and he felt an evident satisfaction 
which showed that he counted his debt paid. 
He had committed to me the work of cancel- 
ing the note held against him. He knew I 
would do it. It was in effect to him the pay- 
ment of his debt. The burden was off his 

mind ; he felt that his business integrity for 

4 



50 FAITH PAPERS. 

fidelity in meeting his claims was vindicated. 
His conscious commitment to me of this busi- 
ness, brought him the rest which the witness 
of faith always insures. 

He got clear of concern for its payment 
several hours before it was paid, because I 
took the care of its payment off him, which 
I could not have done if he had not confided 
in my word of promise to him. So, when 
the soul commits the concern of its salvation 
unto Him who is able to save unto the utter- 
most, then it begins to take up the triumph- 
ant shout which the witness of faith always 
inspires : 

" Hallelujah ! 'tis done: I believe on the Son; 
I am saved by the blood of the crucified One." 

This conscious commitment by the soul of 
its salvation to Christ is characteristic of the 
witness of faith. 

III. A conscious act of trust by the soul. 

The soul is conscious of its own voluntary 
acts. We know when a person or plan com- 
mands our confidence. We know when we 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 51 

believe. There may be much struggle in 
order for the soul to settle down and accept 
the evidence which solicits its faith ; but when 
it passes from the attitude of distrust, or even 
questioning, to that of trust, it knows it. 
When the soul sets itself about to trust for 
salvation, the Adversary comes with his insin- 
uations against, and contradictions of, the 
Word of the Lord ; moreover, he seeks to di- 
vert the soul's attention from the glorious 
promises, the ample provisions, and mighty 
power of the gospel, to its own weakness, 
waywardness, and unworthiness, so that the 
soul must close its ears to the voice of Satan, 
and look steadily to Jesus, the author and 
finisher of its faith. 

But when the contest is ended, and the 
soul has made up its mind to trust the sure 
word of the Lord, it becomes just as con- 
scious that it believes as that it sees, or hears, 
or lives. Faith is an act to be performed. 
It is a thing to be done, and like any other 
act in which the mind is concerned, when 






52 FAITH PAPERS. 

it receives the light, so the heart knows 
when it receives Jesus — when it believes on 
the Son. 

One evening, nine seeking hearts arose 
from an altar of prayer, burdened and un- 
happy because they had not accepted salva- 
tion on the Word of the Lord. They looked 
forlorn and sad. The congregation joined in 
singing that sweet salvation hymn, 

" 'T is the promise of God full salvation to give 
Unto him who on Jesus, his Son, will believe," 

accompanied by the faith inspiring chorus: 

" Hallelujah ! 'tis done : I believe on the Son ; 
I am saved by the blood of the crucified One." 

As its lines were successively repeated, first 

one, then another, of these seekers came into 

the witness of faith, and began in heart, and 

some of them with voice, to say, rejoicingly : 

"Hallelujah! 'tis done." 

What is done ? " Why, 

' I believe on the Son.* M 

What then ? ' < Why, 

' I am saved by the blood of the crucified One/ ,f 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 53 

Before all the stanzas had been sung through, 
eight out of the nine had experiened the wit- 
ness of faith. One, a railroad engineer, had 
not come into the rest of faith. The pastor 
said to him: "Brother, when you make up 
your mind to believe on the Son, you will be- 
gin to sing — 

1 Hallelujah ! 't is done : 
I am saved by the blood of the crucified One.' r 

But his mind was so intent on having a 

blessing and the witness, that he could not, for 

the time being, be led to an immediate act of 

trust. His vocation took him away from the 

services several days. About the third day 

after, the pastor met him on the street coming 

from his locomotive. As soon as he saw the 

pastor, he exclaimed : 

"Hallelujah ! 'tis done: I believe on the Son; 
I am saved by the blood of the crucified One." 

His soul was happy in a conscious trust in 
Jesus, his precious Savior. He said: "Yes- 
terday, while I was taking my train over my 
regular trip, at the rate of twenty miles an 



54 FAITH PAPERS. 

hour, it all came over me, Why not believe on 
the Son? and I did, and though traveling at 
such a rayid speed, salvation overtook me 
there and then, and ever since I have been 
singing in my heart: 

1 Hallelujah ! 't is done : I believe on the Son ; 
I am saved ' 

Glory to the Lamb I" 

This glorious witness of faith to his soul 
was soon supplemented by the witness of the 
Holy Spirit itself. His reception of salvation 
was soon followed by his realization of sal- 
vation. 

How glorious is the witness of faith ! 
It is in us. This consciousness of faith is a 

light unto our path, and when every other 
light of experience is extinguished, this illu- 
minates the soul, and still it sings : 

" Trusting thee, I can not stray, 
I can never lose my way.'* 

Glory to God! "He that belie veth on 
the Son hath the witness in himself/ ' 



¥ kpef tfiftli. 
THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 

ITS EXPERIENCE. 

* Pete*, i, 8, 9 : "In whom, though now ye see him 
not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and 
full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the 
salvation of your souls." 

The witness of faith is just as conscious an 
experience as is the witness of the Holy 
Spirit. It comprises emotions of joy, peace, 
and gladness peculiar to itself. There is a 
faith-feeling just as there is a fear-feeling or a 
love-feeling. There is no true faith without 
feeling. Who can confide in a friend without 
any emotion of pleasure ? Or who can ac- 
cept in good faith the promise of another, 
and not feel a gladness of heart? As Dr. 

Lowrey wrote some months since, in The 

55 



56 FAITH PAPERS. 

Divine Life: " The truth is, faith is a matter of 
feeling. " To speak of believing without feel- 
ing is very misleading ; for where believing be- 
gins, feeling also begins. A man without any 
faith-feeling may begin to believe; but when 
he does so, he also begins to feel the emo- 
tions which accompany faith. Faith is an ex- 
perience as well as an act of the soul, and the 
witness of faith is both the consciousness of 
an act performed and of a feeling experienced. 
This faith-feeling is just as real as the feeling 
which is concomitant to the experience of the 
Holy Spirit's witness. And not only so, but 
in its own kind there is as great an intensity 
of emotion in the experience of faith as there 
is in the experience of the Holy Spirit's wit- 
ness. 'Joy in believing " and "joy in the Holy 
Ghost> though different forms of joy, may 
both be alike unspeakable and full of glory. 
When faith is immediate, lively and unwaver- 
ing, it not only brings salvation and joy in 
believing, but more — joy unspeakable and full 
of glory. The experience of the witness of 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 57 

faith is most precious. The following are 
some of its most interesting phases : 

I. A sense of rest. 

Faith always brings rest of soul. They 
who believe, do enter into rest. Faith and 
rest are Siamese twins ; they are inseparable. 
When faith is wanting, rest is wanting ; and 
when rest is wanting, faith is wanting. Presi- 
dent Finney used to frequently say: "When- 
ever you get out of rest, you are out of faith. ,, 
The witness of faith brings a rest to the soul 
from all fear as to its saving interest in Christ. 
Having consciously received the Lord Jesus 
as its Savior, it no longer fears. Faith is a 
complete antidote to fear. Faith is the stronger 
one which casts out the strong man, fear, from 
the soul. All fear of law, of judgment, of 
penalty, and of every other evil thing, de- 
parts, when faith possesses the heart. Faith 
emancipates from fear. 

There comes also with the witness of faith 
a rest from the seeking or struggle for salva- 
tion. The pursuit is over ; the faith that 



58 FAITH PAPERS. 

saves is realized ; salvation is received ; expec- 
tation is at an end ; anticipation has become 
attainment The impulse to weep and strug- 
gle and pray for salvation subsides. When 
President Finney alone, praying in great agony 
of soul, experienced justification by faith, 
there was such a cessation of mental anxiety 
and of the impulse to pray, that walking 
home, he was tempted to think that, instead 
of being converted, he had only fallen into 
indifference. But it was the true rest of faith 
that always marks the end of seeking and the 
beginning of receiving salvation. It is such 
a rest that all concern for salvation vanishes. 
The soul that believes on the Son of God has 
no concern about salvation. 

Moreover, this rest of faith frees the seek- 
ing soul from anxiety about the witness of 
the Holy Spirit ; for faith commits both the 
saving work and the witness of the same to 
Christ so implicitly that it can have no restless 
longing for either. I read, not long since, 
this sentence, which is a golden spiritual 



THh WITNESS OF FAITH. 59 

axiom: "In proportion as a seeking soul is 
anxiously concerned for the witness of the 
Holy Spirit, in that degree it is doubting." 
Sometimes, indeed most generally, the last 
bulwark of unbelief that surrenders to faith is 
to accept salvation on the Word of the Lord 
without the witness of the Holy Spirit, and to 
rejoice that the Holy Spirit in his own time 
and in his own way will attest the saving work 
that shall be wrought in us. A young man 
came to me in great trouble. I was just start- 
ing to my pulpit on Sabbath morning. He 
was weeping, and was a very picture of dis- 
tress. I could only talk with him a few min- 
utes. He told me his trouble. I said to him : 
"I will fix matters so that your trouble will 
be at an end." I did not say when or how I 
would do it. He wiped away his tears ; a 
restful expression took the place of the wor- 
ried features he wore when he entered my 
door. I had done nothing; I had only prom- 
ised to do something. He believed me, and 
rest came to his troubled heart. He left me 



60 FAITH PAPERS, 

within five minutes bright and happy. I at- 
tended to his case as soon as I could, and 
saved him from the trouble which threatened 
him, and did not see him again until two days 
afterward. I met him on the street. I sup- 
posed his first inquiry would be, " Have you 
attended to my case?" — that he would want 
a witness that I had done what I had prom- 
ised ; but he conversed with me several min- 
utes, and asked nothing about what I had 
promised, and was about to leave, when I said 
to him: "Your matter is all adjusted." 
"O," said he: "I knew that was all right; 
I had no anxiety about it, since you said you 
would attend to it. " He had all this while been 
unconcerned about any assurance that I had 
done it; he had not worried himself about such 
an assurance, nor had he worried me about it. 
So the soul, when it accepts God's promise of 
salvation by faith, rests from all concern about 
the witness of the Holy Spirit; it doesn't 
worry itself, nor does it worry the Lord about 
it. As long as the soul is fretting about the 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 51 

witness, and pestering the Lord about it, it 
has not yet the rest of faith ; for faith brings 
rest from all such unnecessary anxiety. I said 
to a lady who had accepted Christ by faith 
for full salvation : * ' Have you the witness of 
the Spirit ?" She instantly said: "No, and 
I do n't care ; for I know it will come." She 
had the witness of faith, and that earnest of 
the promised witness of the Holy Spirit was 
sufficient for her. 

II. A sense of possession. 

Faith is an act of claiming, of receiving. 
It takes what is proffered in the promises of 
God's Word ; so that with it there springs up 
in the heart a sweet sense of ownership, and 
the soul begins to say: "Jesus is mine" "I 
am saved." 

Joshua was commanded of the Lord to 
say to the children of Israel: "Ye shall 
pass over this Jordan to possess the land 
which the Lord thy God giveth you to possess 
it." Then he added: "Every place where 
the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that I 



62 FAITH PAPERS. 

have given unto you. " Wherever Judah should 
set his foot that should be his ; where Ben- 
jamin should set his foot, that should be his. 
Each should get his inheritance by setting his 
foot upon it. Now, think you not, when 
either had set his foot upon a given territory, 
he did not instantly and instinctively feel, This 
is mine ? 

Think you not that he would have de- 
fended his proprietorship against every other 
contestant? And would he not have felt at 
once a joyful sense of ownership of the tract 
he had thus pre-empted? So when the soul 
sets the foot of its faith upon pardon or full 
salvation as promised to him, there does 
come to it immediately such a precious per- 
suasion of possessorship as fills it with a glad- 
ness which can not be quenched by any lack 
of further witness, or by any temptation of 
the adversary to think otherwise. The instant 
the footfall of faith is set upon the promise 
the soul begins to sing : 

" And all its riches mine." 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 63 

The witness of faith is always 

" It is done : 
I believe on the Son ; 
I am saved by the blood 
Of the crucified One." 

An old colored man, who had a marvelous 
experience in grace, was asked: " Daniel, why 
is it that you have so much peace and joy in 
religion ?" "O Massa!" he replied, "I just 
fall flat on the exceeding great and precious 
promises, and I have all that is in them. Glory, 
Glory !" He who falls flat on the promises, 
feels that all the riches embraced in them 
re his. 

TIL A sense of satisfaction. 

Faith is a state of satisfaction. Persons 
sometimes say : "I am trusting, but I am not 
satisfied.'' That is impossible; for the soul 
that is trusting for salvation is satisfied with 
4 4 salvation by promise," and anticipates soon 
11 salvation by power." If your home were 
under order from the court to be sold to- 
morrow, to cancel a judgment against you for 



64 FAITH PAPERS. 

one thousand dollars, and you had no money 
wherewith to redeem it, and a friend should, 
to-night, present you with a note on the Bank 
of England for one thousand dollars, do you 
think you would say to him: " I am not sat 
isfied ?" Would you feel, I have n't any 
money ! Would you not rather experience 
the sweetest satisfaction ? and would you not 
joyfully tell your wife and children: I have 
one thousand dollars ; our home is saved ? Yet 
that bank-note is only a piece of paper ; it is 
neither silver nor gold ; the judgment is still 
upon your home, but somehow that bank- 
note commands so implicitly your confidence 
that you are most delightfully satisfied. So 
when the soul accepts in like faith any one of 
Heaven's bank-notes of promise as the pledge 
of either pardon, purity, or power, a satisfac- 
tion takes possession of the heart that is un- 
speakable and full of glory; for Heaven's 
bank of grace can not fail, and Heaven's pa- 
per is payable at sight. The value of the 
witness of faith has been greatly underesti- 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 66 

mated in the instruction of seekers of salvation. 
It should be emphasized as the objective point 
in seeking salvation. The struggle of most 
seeking hearts is for the witness of the Holy 
Spirit, and in most cases this is so prominent 
in their minds as to hinder them more than 
any other thing in attaining it. It is the vain 
struggle to have God do his work, which he 
will certainly do without our anxiety or strug- 
gle about it. The real struggle should be for 
the seeking heart to do its part ; that is, to be- 
lieve unto salvation, and so attain the witness 
of faith which always brings a glorious rest 
and satisfaction of soul. We have seen souls 
come into the joy of pardon or full salvation, 
receiving the witness of the Holy Spirit thereto. 
Then we have seen these in an hour, a day, or 
a week, doubting the divine work wrought 
in their hearts ; some even casting away 
their confidence and forfeiting their pardon, 
or cleansing. The cause of this was evident. 
When their emotions subsided, the tempter 
came and said: "Where is your salvation? 



66 FAITH PAPERS. 

you have no feeling;" and not having clearly 
discerned that they were saved by faith, they 
concluded they were deceived, and lapsed into 
darkness. Suppose they had learned that 
* ' only trusting ' they were saved ; then when 
an abatement of the joy came which was con- 
comitant to the witness of the Holy Spirit, 
they would have repelled the temptation of 
the adversary by simply singing, 4 ' 1 am trust- 
ing, Lord, in thee," and they would not only 
have retained the rest of faith, but there would 
doubtless have come a renewed and more 
powerful witness of the Holy Spirit. Here is 
a spiritual axiom that is invaluable : The wit- 
ness of faith attained, the witness of the Holy 
Spirit always follows ; and the witness of faith 
maintained, retains and increases the power 
of the witness of the Holy Spirit. 

A man, in a meeting I held, had been very 
clearly and powerfully converted. It was a 
wonderful conversion, such as no one should 
ever doubt ; but within three days I found him 
bordering on despair, walking in darkness. 



THE WITNESS OF FAITH. 67 

and about to conclude that he was not saved. 
The intensity of heart emotion, and the cor- 
responding nervous excitement, \ which the first 
realization of saving grace brought, had sub- 
sided, and he feared that it had all been ex- 
citement and no salvation. I said to him : 
" Are you still given to God?" He replied: 
" Yes. " "Have you ceased to trust Jesus to 
save you?" "O!" said he, "that was the 
way I was saved, wasn't it? I just trusted. 
O, I will trust on !" and instantly rest came 
again into his heart, and in a few moments 
the Holy Spirit's witness was renewed in great 
power to him, and ever since he has been a 
stable and growing Christian, and now walks 
in the blessing of perfect cleansing, through 
the blood of the Lamb, by faith. It is said, 
one reason why the work of conversion and 
entire sanctification under Mrs. Phoebe Pal- 
mer has such permanence in the hearts of 
those whom she led to Christ, was because 
she emphasized so constantly the faith that 
saves. 



FAITH PAPERS. 

i ' Whosoever believeth shall not make 
haste.' ' 

" Now may the God of hope fill you with 
all joy and peace in believing!" 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 

IT® CHARACTERISTICS. 
Acts vi, 5 : "A man full of faith." 

Faith is well defined to him who possesses 
it ; it is but imperfectly apprehended until ex- 
perienced. He who has faith in any degree, 
hungers and thirsts for it in a larger degree; 
a taste of faith makes the soul eager for a 
feast of it. Every believer has faith, but not 
every believer is full of faith ; with much faith 
there may coexist much lack of faith. There- 
fore Paul longed to see the faces of the breth- 
ren at Thessalonica, that he ° might perfect 
that which was lacking in their faith. ,, The 
soul may have saving faith, and still lack a 
fullness of faith. In this series of " Faith 
Papers " we have hitherto been presenting 

the subject of saving faith ; we now take up 

69 



70 FAITH PAPERS. 

the subject of special faith, which, under va- 
rious phases, is as clearly distinguished in the 
Scriptures from saving faith as saving faith is 
from unbelief. 

Much of the misapprehension which exists 
respecting the nature of faith arises from con- 
founding faith in its saving measure with faith 
in the measure of its fullness. Saving faith 
is a voluntary act of the soul y by which it appro- 
priates salvation. The Fullness of Faith is a 
state of the soul in which it apprehends divine 
and spiritual things ; it is a temper of mind — 
an entirely new frame of heart: it is faith 
shorn of none of its saving efficacy, graduated 
into the "substance of things hoped for 
and the evidence of thing not seen " by the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost in his indwelling 
presence received into the soul. Let us no- 
tice some of the characteristics of The Full- 
ness of Faith : 

I. A consciously exclusive confidence in God. 

Having the fullness of faith, the soul con- 
tinuously exclaims, under all circumstances, 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 71 

with the Psalmist, M Wait thou only upon 
God ; for my expectation is from him ;" it is 
such a vision and persuasion of God's almighti- 
ness, all-lovingness, and all-faithfulness as that 
the soul is given a set God-ward : it will not 
look for help self-ward, man-ward, earthward, 
circumstance- ward, — or other- ward. Faith in 
an imperfect measure is often delude* 1 by fa- 
vorable circumstances or promising indications, 
only to be disappointed. I recall in my own 
early ministry how my immature faith was 
disappointed on one occasion in its hopes, be- 
cause it unconsciously reposed on indications, 
A protracted meeting was begun ; the attend- 
ance was large; general interest good; my 
heart prophesied to itself a glorious revival. 
But the interest evanesced ; the results were 
meager. My faith had been misplaced. As I 
now know, I had great faith in the indications, 
and but little faith in God. 

A noted evangelist taught me in a very 
abrupt way a lesson of faith. I had been 
chosen to welcome him to the city where he 



72 FAITH PAPERS. 

was to labor. I met him on his arrival at th* 
depot ; introduced myself to him, when he at 
once informally said to me : " Have you faith 
in God?" I replied: "Our preparatory serv- 
ices have been good ; the indications are fa- 
vorable." Instantly he rejoined: •' We can't 
depend on good meetings, favorable indica- 
tions, or any thing of that kind. Have you 
faith in God?" Then as I came to think of 
it. I found that I had much faith in the aus- 
picious meetings already held, and in the com- 
ing evangelist, but very little faith in God. 

The soul that is full of faith never becomes 
confounded by unconscious dependence upon 
apparent encouragements. Neither will dis- 
couragements dismay it. Oppositions, ad- 
versities, difficulties, do not enter into its 
calculations. It believes fully that all things 
are possible to him that believeth. It antici- 
pates revivals in the face of prevalent deadness ; 
expects victory where opposition is the most 
formidable; and keeps in heart where provi- 
dences are the most- disheartening. The fact 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 73 

is, a soul full of faith can *t be discouraged, 
because it knows it shall not be disappointed. 
It shouts for what is to be done, even when, to 
human appearance, there is no hope of suc- 
cess. It says, " We are fully able to go up," 
though the rabble of unbelief clamors : ' • We 
can't." It utters the victorious hallelujahs 
which bring the walls of every frowning Jeri- 
cho into the dust. 

A pastor, who had not yet entered into the 
fullness of faith, closed a weekly prayer- 
meeting, heart-sunken with discouragement, 
because of the few present and the unprom- 
ising outlook for the Church, when a good 
brother present came up to him and said : 
" What a good meeting we had to-night ! The 
Lord is going to revive his work." That was 
the outlook of faith in its fullness. A pastor 
went to his field of labor ; every thing was 
unpromising ; religion was in great decline. 
His wife said: " There can be no success 
here." His reply was: '* Faithful is he who 
hath promised, who also will do it." That 



74 FAITH PAPERS. 

faith was honored in a most wonderful ingath- 
ering of souls and a great quickening of the 
Church a few months later. Faith in its 
fullness is 

"A faith that shines more bright and clear 
When tempests rage without, 
That when in danger knows no fear, 
In darkness feels no doubt." 

That sister most nearly discovered the 
secret of the Rev. Thomas Harrison's power 
as an evangelist, who said : " He is a knot of 
faith. ' A man full of faith. ' " 

A man full of faith is a man of God. He 
has a sustained conviction that God can not 
be unfaithful, and has an impressive sense 
that he is, and that he is rewarder of those 
who trust him. 

II. A consciously vivid apprehension of 
Christ. 

Having the fullness of faith, Christ is to the 
soul, the Son of God indeed. The divinity of 
the Lord Jesus Christ becomes a spiritual 
verity, rather than a doctrinal conception. 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 75 

He who is full of faith can not be a Unita- 
rian, for he knows by spiritual cognition that 
Jesus is Lord. The soul on the heights of 
the fullness of faith falls in adoring love at 
the feet of Jesus, and exclaims ' * My Lord 
and my God," as never before. The sac- 
rificial work of Christ receives under the 
illumination of faith in its fullness a new 
interpretation to the heart. The mystery 
of the cross becomes the glory of the soul. 

The blood of the cross is exalted into infi- 
nite worth ; it is seen as the sole ground 
of reconciliation, justification, sanctification, 
and eternal redemption; it is recognized not 
as a part, but as the whole of the atoning 
work ; not as its symbol, but as its substance. 
The blood has wondrous significance to one 
who is full of faith ; he sings of it with a 
sense of appreciation greatly augmented over 
that which he felt the hour he first believed. 

That sweet apostrophe so often sung, 

u O the blood, tbe preciovs blood 
Which Tesns shed for mel M 



76 FAITH PAPERS. 

thrills his heart with raptures that are inex- 
pressible. The substitutional propitiatory sig- 
nificance of the death of Christ is no longer 
a dogma, but a felt truth. Moreover, the 
name of Jesus becomes freighted with a power 
that is measureless ; it is seen as 

"The name high over all;" 

as the prevailing element of successful prayer ; 
as the mediatorial channel of all communion 
and communication between God and man ; 
as the true Jacob's ladder which joins earth 
and heaven, and turns Christian life into a 
Bethel — a house of God. Christ becomes the 
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the 
all and in all to the soul which has come 
into the fullness of faith. So realized is 
Jesus to the soul in sensible glory that it 
exclaims : 

"O could I speak the matchless worth ; 

could I sound the glories forth, 
Which in my Savior shine, 

1 'd soar t and touch the heavenly strings, 
And vie with Gabriel while he sings, 

In notes almost divine !" 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. T* 

I once called upon a lady who had gone 
through deep waters of sorrow. When I met 
her she had not been inside of a church for 
four years, though a Christian. The death 
of her husband had so saddened her by the 
peculiar circumstances under which it had 
occurred, that she could not summon courage 
to take her accustomed place in the house 
of God. Besides, the shadow of sorrow rested 
so deeply upon her heart that she had kept, 
all through those four years, lights burning 
every night in every room of her house, not 
out of superstition, but because she felt that 
natural darkness, superadded to the darkness 
of her sorrow, was more than she could bear. 
I said to her : ' * Jesus will help you and comfort 
you " She replied petulantly : ' ' You ministers 
say Jesus will be this and Jesus will be that 
to the soul, but he has been nothing to me in 
this sorrow. ,, I saw she was not in condition 
to be talked with much. She was holding on 
to Jesus as her Savior, but had not embraced 
him as her Comforter. She was made the 



78 FAITH PAPERS. 

subject of soecial prayer by a few to whom 
her case was reported. A f~w ^"^ks after 
wards she came to one of our morning meet- 
ings. I was almost startled when I saw her 
enter the door. A few minutes after the 
meeting began she arose, and said in almost 
an exclamatory tone: "It is true, it is true! 
Jesus can help a broken heart! O, he came 
into my soul yesterday, and I blew out all the 
lights last night, and my soul and my home 
are now brighter than when all were burn- 
ing. " When she opened her heart and re- 
ceived the Comforter, there sprang up in her 
heart a fullness of faith which realized Jesus 
to her in all his " matchless worth." Such 
faith is the soul's Mount of Transfiguration, 
where it beholds in beatific visions the glories 
which in our Savior shine. Dear reader, 
may you allow the Holy Spirit to translate you 
to this heavenly place ; for once there you wilJ 
desire to build tabernacles, and will sing : 

# 
" Here I should forever stay, 

Weep and gaze myself away." 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 79 

III. A consciously higher appreciation of 
God s Word. 

The Bible is an infallible book to the soul 
that is full of faith. It is then received as a di- 
vine revelation, as the very Word of God. It 
becomes a volume all instinct with holy inspi- 
ration. The plenary inspiration of the Holy 
Scripture passes from being a merely doc- 
trinal conception into a spiritual apprehension. 
He who has come into a fullness of faith 
drops all questioning and quibbling as to the 
complete inspiration and divine authority of 
the Scriptures ; their very enigmas, difficul- 
ties, and obscurities are accepted as signifi- 
cant; and what is incomprehensible in them 
is believed even more fully than what is clearly 
understood. The fullness of faith not only 
accepts the Bible an inspired book, but it 
also renders it an illuminated book. It reads 
it by a new light, and sees in it new mean- 
ing. The soui, full 01 faith, sings: 

" Holy Bible, Book divine, 
Precious treasure, thou art mine !" 



80 FAITH PAPERS. 

The Bible, hitherto uninteresting, becomes a 
supreme delight. 

Once in my ministry a lady came to me 
who was a very creditable worker in my 
Church, and a converted woman, and she said 
to me: "I don't love to read the Bible. I 
have n't a relish for it. I find that I prefer to 
read the magazines and the best authors and 
current papers. There must be something 
wrong. I know I ought to love the Bible." 
I said: "There is something wrong. You 
need that baptism of the Holy Spirit that will 
unseal the book, and illuminate its pages so 
that your soul will exclaim, 'How I love Thy 
law!' " About two months after she came to 
me and said: "O, the Bible is a changed 
book to me now ! O, it is a new book, such 
a precious book ! I only wish I had more 
hours in which to linger over its pages!" I 
asked her what had transformed it so wonder- 
fully to her? She replied; "I went with it 
open before me on my knees one day, and I 
said : ' Give me, Lord, a heart to love and 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 81 

delight in thy Word/ and there came to me 
such a view of its truth, and such a sense of 
its divine origin, that my heart was filled with 
a completeness of faith in it, and ever since 
it has been a glorious enjoyment to me." 

The fullness of faith comprises such an 
immediate confidence in God, such an appre- 
hension of Christ, and such a full reception 
of the Bible as the Word of God, as gives to 
Christian experience an effectiveness, enjoy- 
ment, and completeness that saving faith alone 
does not compass. Have we this baptism of 
faith ? The triumphant experience of Stephen 
is not beyond the reach of every believer. 
He was <4 a man full of faith." We, too, 
may be full of faith. 

;< Lord give us such a faith as this, 
And then, whate'er may come, 
We'll taste, e'en here/the hallowed blisf 
Of an eternal home.'* 

6 



f^kpef Seventh. 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH 

ITS EFFECTS. 

Heb. XI, 33: "Who through faith wrought righteous- 
ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. 1 



» 



Faith is always effectual: it eventuates in 
results ; it brings something to pass. What 
it brings to pass, however, depends upon its 
aim. If it claims pardon or purity or power, 
according as it is, so shall it be done unto it. 
To say, " Trust in the Lord and care nothing 
for results," is misleading. That would not 
be faith at all, for it belongs to faith to believe 
for something ; it must anticipate results. 
Faith is always accompanied by effects. Some 
effects are promised to faith in its saving ex- 
ercise, and other effects are promised to it in 
the exercise of its fullness. The effects pos 

sible to the one are different from those pos- 
82 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 83 

sible to the other Saving faith compasses 
pardon, regeneration, witness of adoption, and 
entire sanctification ; while faith in its fullness 
compasses a range of spiritual experiences 
and states not possible to lower measures of 
faith. Faith in its fullness brings to pass con- 
versions, and results in the domain of per- 
sonal consciousness which would not otherwise 
transpire. 

Let us consider the effects of the fullness of 
faith in two respects : 

I. Its achievements. 

It renders the personality of the man who 
has it effective for God ; his finite capabilities 
are raised to superhuman power; it endows 
him with power for spiritual results. Barna- 
bas was full of faith and of power. Power is 
the inseparable concomitant of fullness of 
faith ; they are hemispheres of the same globe. 
The simplest definition of power is faith in 
God. He who is full of faith is mighty 
through God. Divest D. L. Moody of this 
faith, and all his native personal force would 



84 FAITH PAPERS. 

achieve nothing in the great work of evangel- 
gelization ; he would be powerless. 

Nothing other than John Wesley's super- 
added faith made his scholarship, culture, and 
marked individuality so effective and far-reach- 
ing for good as they have proved. This full- 
ness of faith empowers all religious activities : 
it gives weight to our words of testimony, ex- 
hortation, and instruction ; freighted with it 
they carry a spiritual avoirdupois which may 
break stolid hearts into penitence, or exert a 
spiritual force that may lift souls up to God. 
With it a sentence often achieves more than a 
sermon without it. 

An aged Christian lady visited a worldly, 
irreligious man at his home, and said to him : 
"You ought not to lose your soul." Just 
what he had heard before in sermons and ex- 
hortations ; but as they fell from the lips of that 
saintly woman, freighted with a great faith, they 
** weighed," as he said, upon his heart so that 
he could not eat or sleep or work, or do aught 
else, until he had given his heart to Christ 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 85 

Mr. Finney was a man of such faith that his 
words of reproof and appeal went in an air. 
line to the heart, producing immediate im- 
pression in the soul. He met at one time ? 
worldly young woman, who belonged to the 
family in which he was a guest, coming out 
of the Church at the close of one of his im- 
pressive services. He said to her : ' * Where 
are you going ?" She replied: "Home. " 
"Yes," rejoined Mr. Finney, "to your long 
home." Her countenance fell, she grew sober, 
walked silently and tremblingly to her home, 
and when Mr. Finney arrived she lay upon 
the floor in an agony of distress on account 
of her lost condition. I know a lady whose 
words in ordinary conversation have a spir- 
itual edge which faith alone can put to lan- 
guage. Sitting one evening in the midst 
of a social company, she began to speak so 
impressively, in a natural and unpretentious 
way, of the Lord's dealings with her soul that 
some began to weep. Noticing it, she mod- 
estly asked the privilege of praying. When 



86 FAITH PAPERS. 

they arose, a husband and wife had found 
the joy of a restored salvation, and a young 
lady had been enriched with the pearl of 
great price. Her words had been words of 
faith. Such a faith imparts an effectiveness 
to pulpit utterances, home counsels, and Sab- 
bath-school instruction, as they can not have 
without it. The fullness of faith empowers 
the life of the child of God ; it makes it tell; 
it invests it with a quietness of manner, a 
sweetness of spirit, and an earnestness of 
demeanor that is more influential in winning 
souls to Christ than any other thing. There 
was a young man who had become infatuated 
with the deceits of Ingersollism. He thought 
he had come to a full acceptance of its 
errors, and had about concluded that the 
Church was nothing to be respected, the Bible 
a human invention, and religion a mere 
fancy. Just about this time he went to write 
at the same desk in an office where there 
stood opposite him a devoted young man, full 
of faith and the Holy Ghost. There they 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 87 

stood facing each other, pushing busily their 
pens for several months. Occasionally the 
young skeptic would flaunt out his reproaches 
upon Christianity, and his infidel objections. 
His godly associate refrained from any sharp 
retorts, and declined all controversy, but 
kept his soul so full of faith that he wore a 
bright face, carried a good spirit, and main- 
tained an irreproachable life. One evening 
this skeptical young man fell in with the 
pastor of the Church to which his relig- 
ious business companion belonged. As they 
walked together this disciple of Ingersoll said 
very abruptly : "I have made up my mind 
to join your Church." The pastor, much 
surprised, said: "I am glad of it. Come 
next Sabbath and I will receive you ; and 
now tell me what has changed your mind." 
"O," said he, "I have been writing for sev- 
eral months at a desk with a young man, a 
member of your Church. He never gets out 
of humor ; he always seems so happy, and he 
is so kind that he has burned all my infidelity 



88 FAITH PAPERS. 

out of me, and I want just what he has, and 
I believe he has religion." The next Sab- 
bath he united with the Church, and is now 
a happy and useful Christian. That Christian 
young man lived a life of faith, and it told. 
The fullness of faith always enables the Chris- 
tian to live a spiritually energized life for God. 
The works and labors of love in Christian life are 
multiplied and enlarged under the power of a 
fullness of faith. It originates greater things, 
plans larger enterprises, inaugurates bolder 
endeavors, and compasses richer results than 
faith in its minor measures. Its works for the 
salvation of men are wonderful ; it always 
abounds in the work of the Lord. It carries 
forward a sustained work of prayer. The man 
full of faith is pre-eminently a man of prayer ; 
he, like Payson, is audacious in prayer ; asks 
large things, and asks with a boldness whose 
demands God never denies. Said one who 
listened to one of the simple prayers of that 
prince of faith, Bishop William Taylor, " He 
isn't backward in asking the Lord for great 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 89 

things." No man of faith is Success crowns 
the man full of faith ; he does n't fail ; his 
labor is not in vain ; whatsoever he doeth pros- 
pers ; fruit appears ; results follow. The full- 
ness of faith accomplishes the grand achieve- 
ments of transforming its possessor into a 
power for God, and of precipitating divine 
movements in the Church, the world, and hu- 
man hearts, which eventuate in marked re- 
sults in the salvation of souls. 

II. Its experiences. 

All the effects of faith within the domain 
of personal consciousness are real and pre- 
cious. The conscious experiences which re- 
sult from saving faith, such as a sense of 
pardon, adoption, and a new life, are not to 
be undervalued ; yet there remain coexistent 
with these disagreeable elements of conscious- 
ness, such as doubts, fears, and clouds. 
These commingle with the peace, joy, and light 
of the converted soul, so that it often sings : 

" E'en the rapture of pardon is mingled with fears. 
And the cup of rejoicing with sadness and tears. '* 



90 FAITH PAPERS. 

Its enjoyments are, at best, variable. The 
particular improvement in the realm of expe- 
rience which the fullness of faith brings is 
that it clears the skies of the soul, disperses 
its shadows, and secures to it a sustained 
light, warmth, and enjoyment in God. There 
are several new elements of experience which 
it ushers in. 

i . Full assurance. 

It so fully persuades the soul of its accept- 
ance with God, makes it so conscious of his 
indwelling presence, and so assures the soul 
of the verity of spiritual things, that the soul 
walks in the light and sings, 

"Not a cloud doth arise 
To darken my skies." 

Doubts vanish ; their hideous specters never 
even flit across the soul ; and the experience 
of the seraphic Faber becomes verified to 
the heart: 

" I know not what it is to doubt ; 

My heart is always gay." j 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 91 

The soul stands on the solid ground of con- 
scious certainty respecting its salvation and 
hope. It walks now by faith. Some speak 
often of walking by faith as though it were a 
rough, dark way. They say : * * I have many 
doubts, much darkness, no joy, but I am 
walking by faith." By no means are they. 
Faith's way is not such; it is a cloudless 
way, a smooth way, a joyous way. The way 
that is cloud-cast and doubt-strewn is the 
way of sight. The fullness of faith is a 
vision of soul, where its eye, as it sweeps the 
horizons of time and eternity, 

" Reads its title clear 
To mansions in the skies," 

rejoices in hope, walks above the world and 

sin, and to it 

"The invisible appears, 
And God is seen by mortal sight*' 

The exclamation of one when faith's full orb 
had risen within his soul was, "Lo, what a 
witness! Clearer than that of my adoption, 
it is a perfect globe of assurance" 



32 FAITH PAPERS. 

2. Freedom from fear is another new phase 
of experience of soul which attends the full- 
ness of faith. The dread of duty which 
haunts so many Christian lives, and which 
paralyzes the sours sensibilities for enjoy- 
ing God, quits the soul. Crosses become 
delights, service joy. Faith in its fullness 
emancipates the soul from the bondage of 
doing duty in the dread of it, and brings it 
the liberty of doing duty in the love of it. 
This is accompanied by a freedom from the 
fear of God's will. The chief reason why so 
many Christians hesitate to offer themselves 
"living sacrifices unto God," is that they fear 
to say, "Thy will be done." They fear 
that he may choose some suffering or disap- 
pointment or persecution or bereavement for 
them. But the soul full of faith adores God's 
sweet will ; it is so persuaded of the divine 
all-lovingness, that he will not choose for it 
what is not best, as that it has no concern 
about what his will is concerning it. The 
bondage of dreading a loving Father's will is 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 95 

supplanted by the liberty of delighting in it. 
This embraces, also, no fear for the future. 
Said a Christian woman: "I have grace suf- 
ficient for the present, but I don't believe I 
could endure the trials and temptations some 
have, should they come to me." Had she 
been "full of faith' ' she would have been 
quiet from the fear of evil. The soul full of 
faith fears neither coming age or service or 
death It lives in no fear of backsliding or 
spiritual decline, or fruitless years to come : 
its confidence is like Paul's : * ' I am persuaded 
that he is able to keep that which I have 
committed unto him." A Christian woman 
was in the habit of saying in the presence of 
her saintly colored servant, who was always 
happy: " Dinah, suppose this should happen, 
or that should come to you, some great sor- 
row, accident, or misfortune." "Why, mis- 
sus," said Dinah, "I never sposes any thing; 
its your sposes that make you so miserable. 
1 knows all things work together for good to 
dem what loves de Lord, and that makes me 



94 FAITH PAPERS. 

happy all de time." Dinah was full of faith. 
Such a soul never supposes any thing about 
the future, and so rejoices in hope. 

3. Heavenly mindedness is another new ele- 
ment of experience in the soul full of faith. 

Heavenly mindedness is a state, not a 
mere emotion of soul. The heart becomes 
possessed of heavenly thoughts and feelings. 
It lives on a celestial altitude of experience 
in the midst of pressing duties, cares, and 
perplexities. It is an experience akin to 
what some saints have realized during long 
periods of decline, as they anticipated their 
early translation to heaven. Said Mrs. Pro- 
fessor Lacroix, days before her death, * ' I 
am done with earth; I have begun to live in 
heaven." Thus by the power of a fullness of 
faith, the soul, not waiting for the near ap- 
proach of death, may be lifted into an expe- 
rience where it begins to live the heavenly 
life while yet in the body. Then, as one has 
beautifully written : ' ' It goes to heaven be- 
fore it gets there locally. God transfers his 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 95 

kingdom and glory to the heart, making it a 

province of the land of light in advance. 

The whole realm of its inner being is annexed 

to the heavenly empire, and its citizenship is 

transferred from earth to the heavenly city.' 

O glorious, wondrous faith, which enables us 

to know 

" Our heaven begun below!*' 

Dear reader, may the Lord lead you to 
this fullness of faith, so that having your con- 
versation in heaven you may exultantly sing: 

"Yet onward I haste to the heavenly feast: 
That indeed is the fullness, but this is the taste; 
And this I shall prove, till with joy I remove 
To the heaven of heavens in Jesus ^ove." 



f kpei* %ig\tt\. 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 

ITS -A.T^TAllSINIEDrc'r. 

Acts xi, 24: " Full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." 

The fullness of faith is a work of the Holy 
Spirit. Therefore, when the apostle Paul sets 
forth the fruit of the Spirit he puts into the 
precious cluster faith. Now, since the Spirit 
himself, in fullness, is only given to believers, 
after they have exercised saving faith (that 
is, it is a /^-conversion experience), there- 
fore, the faith which flows from his indwell- 
ing must be some enlargement and enrich- 
ment of faith which does not belong to it in its 
initial character. Faith, in its saving meas- 
ure, is faith with hands and feet unloosed, 

yet with eyes that are darkened and wings 
96 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 97 

that are bound : it is a clinging chrysalis — it 
neither sees nor soars. But faith in its full- 
ness is faith with eyes wide open, and wings 
unbound. Faith never reaches its fullness 
until it transmigrates from an exercise into a 
state of soul, until it can apprehend, as well 
as appropriate, the things which are freely 
given it of God. When faith, without losing 
any of its saving virtue, by the power of the 
Holy Ghost in us becomes the substance of 
things hoped for, and the evidence of things 
not seen, it has reached its majority, it is 
full grown. The process for the attainment 
of the fullness of faith differs from that for 
the attainment of faith in its saving efficacy, 
because they differ in experience. Saving 
faith is a thing done by us, a conscious, vol- 
untary act by which the soul accepts salva 
tion ; the fullness of faith is a state wrought 
in us by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
Being a grace wrought in us, it must be 
definitely sought and received as any other 
grace is obtained. Two things are very essen- 



98 FAITH PAPERS. 

tial to the soul's attainment of the fullness 
of faith, it must know the source and the 
antecedents of this experience. 

I. Its source. 

The baptism of the Holy Ghost is the cause, 
and fullness of faith the effect. The fullness of 
the Holy Spirit implanted in the soul is the 
perennial fountain whence proceeds the cease- 
less stream of fullness of faith. Barnabas was 
full of the Holy Ghost, and consequently full 
of faith. When the Pentecostal grace is 
come, faith in its fullness has come. All 
lack of faith in true believers is the result of 
not having the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
The gift of the Holy Ghost is to be distin- 
guished from the ordinary operations of the 
Holy Spirit in awakening, regeneration, and 
adoption ; it is His personal indwelling in the 
soul. When he has thus possessed the soul 
as a refiner y he purges away the dross of na- 
tive unbelief from the heart ; as an illuminator, 
he reveals Jesus as the author and finisher of 
faith; and as an itnpowerer, he spiritually 



TEE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 99 

energizes the soul to apprehend all the fullness 
of God in the promises of his Word. The 
fullness of the Holy Spirit himself received 
into the soul is the source of all fullness ; not 
a grace of the Spirit can exist there in its 
fullness without his indwelling presence. Full 
ness of joy, fullness of love, fullness of 
faith, all inhere in the fullness of the Holy 
Spirit. Faith can not be trained into the 
stature of fullness. The fullness of faith is a 
product of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
Hence the early Church gave great attention, 
as a desideratum to the new converts, that 
they should be filled with the Holy Ghost. 
Therefore we have in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles numerous records of individuals and 
of multitudes who received the anointing. 
Philip, the evangelist, had no sooner secured 
the conversion of hundreds in Samaria than 
the apostles hastened thither to impart the 
gift of the Holy Ghost. So that the fullness 
of faith became then a common, instead of 
an unusual, experience. Stephen was full of 



100 FAITH PAPERS. 

faith and the Holy Ghost. Saul of Tarsus, 
after his conversion to God on the Damascus 
road, under the instruction of a humble dis- 
ciple, Ananias, was filled with the Holy 
Ghost ; and there began his wonderful career 
of faith, of which, as life went on, he could 
say: "The life I now live I live by the faith 
of the Son of God;" and when it was clos- 
ing could triumphantly exclaim: "I have 
kept the faith. " Now men and women get 
converted, live in Church for years, and do 
not so much as know whether there be any 
Holy Ghost as a source of a fullness of faith. 
This grace of faith, being a work of the Holy 
Spirit, bears his divine imprint. It is a spirit 
of faith ; the soul is pervaded by its inspira- 
tions; it enters into all its states, experiences, 
and activities. The whole life has an air 
of faith; it is repose to the manner, confi- 
dence in the tone, steadiness in the demeanor. 
It is a spontaneous activity of the heart. 
Faith is no longer self-operated, but divinely 
operated. What is written comes to pass: 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 101 

44 1 will put my Spirit within you, and cause 
you to walk in my statutes." The causative 
power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us ena- 
bles the soul to trust without effort or dint 
of will. The volitional becomes absorbed in 
the affectional emotions of the heart. Faith 
now works by love ; believing becomes auto- 
matic — it believes itself. 

Faith is no more a task or wonder. To 
some it seems marvelous to have faith, but 
he who has operative in him the power of the 
Holy Ghost thinks it marvelous not to be- 
lieve. The strain of faith is removed, and it is 
so easy to believe. More still, faith becomes, 
under the power of the Spirit, a sustained 
movement of soul. The Holy Spirit dwelling 
in the soul is a tremendous mainspring of 
feeling, thinking, and willing, coiled up in the 
center of spiritual life, to which every wheel 
of grace is attached, keeping it in continuous 
motion. This mainspring can *t run down ; 
its energies are eternal. Neither can the faith 
which it operates run down. So that faith in 



102 FAITH PAPERS. 

its fullness is not a fitful, wavering, and 
evanescent but a prolonged, unabated, cease- 
less experience of soul. The manifoldness 
of faith under the power of the Spirit is glo- 
rious ; it is adequate to such a variety of 
wants, and compasses such a wide range 
of blessings ; all things are possible to it, 
strength, consolation, wisdom. God withholds 
from it no good thing. Moreover, it is 
available. We have it. Let emergencies, 
crises, unexpected trials, providences, or du- 
ties arise, and it is on hand. So many of 
God's children have to work up faith for 
every new demand. If sorrow comes, they 
have to tug and toil for faith to bear it; if 
some new responsibility or service is thrust 
upon them, they have a severe struggle to 
get faith for it. So ministers and Churches 
squander a large part of the time given to 
special revival effort in getting faith for it. 

But when the fullness of faith is had, we 
have faith for every occasion, duty, and work ; 
when the service or sorrow comes, the faith 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 103 

for it is at hand. The baptism of the Holy 
Spirit imparts to the soul full salvation ; this 
removes the inherent unbelief, unspiritualness, 
and moral darkness of the soul, out of which 
arise the doubts, the fears, and the unrest 
which attend an immature faith, and which 
constitute the disabilities that render faith 
feeble and fitful. 

There are those who desire faith — great 
faith — but who do not desire as well heart- 
purity, the only soil that can yield a fullness 
of faith. The kingdom of God in full salva- 
tion is a spiritual unit ; it is indivisible. He 
who wants its joy or its faith must take the 
entire kingdom. Receiving it, the soul be- 
comes rich toward God ; rich in faith, rich ira 
love, rich in all goodness. 

The grace of full salvation is not merely 
one of many manifestations of the Holy Spirit ; 
it is not a blessing from the Holy Spirit, but 
the baptism of the Holy Spirit, comprehend- 
ing his personal, conscious incoming into the 
soul, cleansing it from its sinward tendency, 



104 FAITH PAPERS. 

filling it with all the fullness of God, and im- 
parting to it a fullness of faith, of love, and 
of power. It is more than a blessing. Said 
an excellent woman not long since who had 
found full salvation : ' * I have been getting 
blessings for years from the Lord ; but this is 
more and better than they all." The fullness 
of faith and the fullness of love are not seria- 
tim ingraftings upon the soul's experience, 
but are scions of the one implanted tree of 
life, the Holy Spirit indwelling in the soul. 
Hence to seek a fullness of faith, exclusive 
of the sanctifying and enduing baptism of the 
Holy Ghost, is to limit the Holy One of Is- 
rael. He never imparts his graces without 
imparting himself. The soul that cries, 

" Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, 
With all thy quickening powers," 

will get the Holy Spirit himself, and in him 
will find all the fullness of faith. 

II. Its Antecedents. 

I. An unequivocal experience of saving 
faith. 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH, 105 

There are no possibilities of faith in its 
higher degrees without saving faith attained 
and maintained. To renounce or undervalue 
saving faith, renders the fullness of faith im- 
possible : ' ' For we are partakers of Christ, 
if we hold the beginning of our confidence 
steadfast unto the end.' Fullness of faith is 
saving faith expanded by the power of the 
Holy Ghost until it sweeps vast areas of divine 
blessing beyond the range of saving grace. 
George Muller, the founder of the Bristol or- 
phanages, says he finds no difference in kind 
between the faith by which he trusts Christ to 
save his soul, and that by which he trusts God 
to feed, clothe, and shelter two thousand or- 
phans. It is only saving faith given a wider 
range. Faith in its saving virtue is the germ ; 
faith in its fullness is the fruit. There must 
be first the blade of saving faith, then the ear 
of fullness of faith. The believer who would 
attain the grace of faith in its fullness must 
cry out: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine 
unbelief " 



106 FAITH PAPERS. 

2. The consecration of saving faith to God 
An indispensable antecedent to the attain- 
ment of a fullness of faith is to put the talent 
of saving faith on the altar of God, as one of 
the powers of the soul made alive to him, to 
be transformed by the renewing of the Holy 
Gho«st into a stature of fullness. 

That faith by which the convert, or babe 
in Christ, feebly clings to the cross — a faith so 
weak that it barely brings the peace of par- 
don, consecrated to God — may transmigrate 
suddenly from a faith that saves into a faith 
which brings full assurance and a glorious ap- 
prehension of things not seen. Saving faith 
given to God unfolds into a fullness of faith. 

3. The exercise of saving faith. 

Saving faith is the only spiritual capability 
whose exercise can bring the fullness of faith. 
The faith which claims Christ as a Savior has 
only to receive him as the Baptizer with the 
Holy Ghost, and, lo ! the promise of the 
Father descends ; faith bursts into unclouded 
vision ; its perfectness is come. 



THE FULLNESS OF FAITH. 107 

There are many who sigh over their in- 
fantile, weak, wavering faith, who, would they 
but use it in laying hold of some such promise 
as "How much more will your Heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
him," would find it lifted into power and 
glory. By faith, " faith's increase we claim." 

Dear reader, may the Lord perfect that 

which is lacking in your faith ! 

"Spirit of Faith, come down: 
Reveal the things of God." 



IV* JM*. 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 

I Cor. xii, 9 : "To another faith by th® same Spirit * 

The Bible treats of a phase of faith dif- 
fering from both faith in its saving exercise 
and faith in its fullness ; this it very properly 
designates "the gift of faith" When Paul 
enumerates thegifts sovereignly bestowed upon 
believers in the twelth chapter of I Corin- 
thians, the gift of faith is prominent in the 
list. The gift of faith operates in spheres 
which are not available to saving faith or to 
the fullness of faith; it apprehends results 
which only the supernatural illuminations of 
the Holy Spirit reveal to the soul as possible 
to faith. Without such a supernatural reve- 
lation the existence and exercise of charis- 
matic faith, or the gift of faith, is impossible. 
108 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 109 

There is a gift of faith ; it has not been 
withdrawn from God's people; it, like other 
manifestations of himself, the self-same Spirit 
worketh in them who believe, as hitherto . 
Several features of the gift of faith may be 
profitably considered. 

I. Its office. 

The gift of faith is a divinely inwrought 
assurance given the soul that God will do in, 
for, or by the person upon whom it is be- 
stowed, certain apprehended results, and this 
persuasion is so indubitable that it becomes 
the very substance of the things desired, and 
the very evidence (or proof), the conclusive 
testimony of the things not seen (not verified). 
Hence this faith is vital in certain of its rela- 
tions. It is an indispensable qualification for 
the execution of some divine order by the 
person upon whom it is bestowed. 

i. This gift is the indispensable accompani- 
ment of the divine missions to which God appoints 
men 

When God calls one to the work of evan- 



110 FAITH PAPERS. 

gelist, teacher, prophet, or healer, he accom- 
panies it with such an endowment of faith 
upon the soul as that the fruit of evangelism, 
teaching, prophecy, or healing shall appear. 
This gift attends such only in their divine 
callings, and is effective only for their legiti- 
mate work, Sometimes the range of this 
endowment of faith is narrow, limited to only 
one phase of results, with one evangelist to 
the conversion of sinners, as with Philip of Sa- 
maria and Thomas Harrison of to-day ; with 
E. P. Hammond to the conversion of children 
chiefly ; with another to the sanctification of 
believers principally, as Dr. Sheridan Baker ; 
with Miss Sarah Smiley, to teaching alone ; 
with George Muller, to building orphanages ; 
with Dr. Cullis, to faith cures ; with Francis 
Murphy, to reform inebriates. The divine 
call is the pledge of the divine anointing of 
faith for its work. 

2. It is the indispensable antecedent of super- 
natural results in nature and mind through 
human agency. 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. Ill 

The birth of Isaac in the ordinary course 
of nature was impossible. Many years after 
Abraham had believed the covenant promise 
of God by which he obtained justification, God 
appeared unto him ; talked with him ; promised 
him a son by Sarah, and called his name Isaac. 
By this revelation of the Almighty God, Abra- 
ham is persuaded that what he has promised 
he is able to perform. He received the gift 
of faith, gave glory to God, and laughed out- 
right from the delight of assurance which 
illuminated his soul. According to this faith, 
divinely imparted to him, it was done unto 
him. The miracle of the incarnation was 
through faith. The angel Gabriel being sent 
of God, came to a devout Galilean dam- 
sel residing at Nazareth; he saluted her: 
"Hail! thou art highly favored; the Lord 
is with thee." Troubled in mind by the 
sudden appearance of this seraphic visitant, 
and his strange salutation, she is assured and 
comforted by a second message: "Fear not; 
thou hast found favor of the Lord. Thou 



"V/ 



112 FAITH PAPERS. 

shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name 
Jesus." This supernatural manifestation irre- 
sistibly persuaded her that it was the divine 
purpose that she should be the mother of the 
Lord. She consented to the mission, say- 
ing : "Be it unto me according to thy word." 
A divinely wrought faith possessed her heart. 
The divine Benedictus from the lips of Eliza- 
beth, under the power of the Holy Ghost, 
confirmed it, saying: "Blessed is she that 
hath believed that there shall be a fulfillment 
of the things spoken to her from the Lord." 
Then breaks forth the shout of Mary's Spirit- 
imparted faith in the inspired Magnificat, 
"My soul doth magnify the Lord," etc., jubi- 
lant with all the anticipations which had their 
wondrous realization in the Advent. God 
gave Mary faith for this mission, and accord- 
ing to her faith it was done unto her. When 
God would make Ananias an agent for the 
salvation of Saul of Tarsus, he appears to 
him in a vision in the person of the ascended 
Lord, speaks to him, commissions him, dis- 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 113 

closes to him Saul's state of heart, silences 
his fears, assures him of the persecutor's true 
conversion, and of the divine purpose to 
make Saul a chosen vessel. All this brings 
the heart of Ananias into a sure confidence 
that the work committed to him shall not fail. 
He went; he succeeded ; he witnessed the sal- 
vation of the great apostle to the Gentiles. 
So it is ever: when God would have an ex- 
traordinary work achieved, or some unusual 
event transpire which is not according to the 
observed course of nature or mind, he works 
into some heart the supernatural persua- 
sion that he will do this thing to, for, or 
by him. 

These Scriptural citations are given only 
as samples of how, in like manner, God now 
sometimes imparts this gift of faith to his 
humblest disciples, enabling them to effect 
results, secure deliverances, promote revivals, 
and to do other mighty works. 

Miss Sarah Smiley had been long an inva- 
lid ; one day it came to her: "The Lord is 



114 FAITH PAPERS. 

thy healer!" It came so irresistibly that her 
heart responded, " Even so, Lord;" it was 
faith for her healing. The next day she 
arose from her bed, grew stronger day by 
day, and has ever since been a successful 
evangelist. 

A wife was impressed while praying to 
ask for the preservation and salvation of 
her husband, who was an officer on a Mis- 
sissippi River steamer, then distant from 
home. The assurance of faith came that her 
desire was granted. The day following a 
telegram came to her that the steamer had 
burned, and that her husband had perished. 
She read it, folded it up, and said to the 
friend who delivered it: * * It is not so; he 
is saved from the flames and the waves, 
and shall be from his sins." A few days 
after, he arrived home, was soon converted, 
and lived for many years, a praise in the 
Church. 

Mr. Finney had visited a place to hold 
revival services. He was the guest of an ex- 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 115 

cellent Christian woman. After he had held 
the first service, he determined to leave; his 
hostess urged him to stay, but he said he would 
leave. She then said : ' ' Well, if you do go, 
God will send a revival anyhow. " Mr. Finney 
stayed, and a most wonderful revival followed. 
She had the gift of faith for a revival. A 
young lady, backslidden in heart, filled with 
skeptical notions, reluctantly accompanied her 
godly father to church one night. Her mother 
in enfeebled health remained at home. While 
engaging in prayer, she was drawn out in sup- 
plication for her daughters restoration to di- 
vine favor ; while on her knees, an assurance 
of faith was given her that her daughter 
should not come home without being saved. 
Lo ! when she returned home, she reported 
how the Lord had restored unto her the joy 
of salvation ! The gift of faith is antecedent 
to and promotive of all such results as lie be- 
yond the range of the blessings of grace 
promised to saving faith, and the experience 
of faith in the measure of its fullness. 



116 FAITH PAPERS. 

3. It is the source of the prayer of faith. 

That which is called in the Scriptures 
"the prayer of faith " springs out of the en- 
dowment of faith. The soul, becoming super- 
naturally assured by the Holy Spirit through 
the Word that it is God's will to do certain 
things by, for, or to it, instantly takes up 
prayer for that thing. What are often spoken 
of in Christian life as special answers to prayer, 
are those things given which were asked for 
when the soul was lifted into an assurance that 
God would grant those very things. The ask- 
ing was prompted by the assurance of faith 
that had been given. 

II. Its Order. 

The gift of faith like every other gift of 
the Holy Spirit as a special endowment is 
inferior to the graces of the Spirit ; for the 
apostle supposes it possible ' ' to have all faith 
so as to remove mountains," and yet be des- 
titute of love, the very substance of Christian 
experience. Indeed, he teaches that if en- 
dowed only with the gift of faith, ■ ' 1 am 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 117 

nothing." Several things suggest the infe- 
riority of the gift of faith to the grace of 
faith in its saving exercise and the measure of 
its fullness. 

I. The gift of faith is not obligatory. 

The Scriptures nowhere enjoin that the 
soul must have faith to remove mountains, or 
heal diseases, or work miracles Such faith 
is not essential in order to please God. It is 
indeed rather the reward of pleasing him than 
a requirement for pleasing him. "He that 
cometh to God [for salvation] must believe 
that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them 
that diligently seek him." " He that be- 
lieveth * [unto salvation] is condemned al- 
ready." 

These and other passages teach that saving 
faith as a voluntary act of the soul, or the 
fullness of faith as a gracious state of the 
heart, is obligatory. The gift of faith is not 
optional, hence not obligatory. The holiest 
saint can not have it when he wills. It is 
neither commanded of us. nor at our com 



118 FAITH PAPERS. 

mand. The Holy Spirit divideth (appor- 
tioned) it to every man (in Christ) severally 
as he wills, and that which is conferred upon 
one by divine sovereign endowment is not ob- 
ligatory. The grace of faith is not an endow- 
ment, and is therefore a requirement The 
possession of the grace of faith is a duty ; the 
gift of faith is not. No one feels condem- 
nation if he have not faith for the healing of 
his body, or any other supernatural result ; 
but he does experience condemnation if he 
does not believe the record which God hath 
given concerning his Son for the salvation of 
his soul. 

2. The gift of faith is not a constant ex- 
perience. 

It is not an abiding manifestation of the 
Holy Spirit; it is transient, variable, occa- 
sional. It is not given once for all, for all 
things, and in all degrees. Paul had it for the 
healing of the father of Publius and others on 
the Island of Melita, but not for the restora- 
tion of Tkjaphimus, whom he left behind at 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 119 

Melitum. ' ' But now abideth faith [the grace 
of faith], hope, charity [love] ;" that is, these 
are the staple graces — the permanent expe- 
riences of Christian character. Whosoever 
believeth (present tense, meaning, begins to be- 
lieve and continues to believe) shall be saved ; 
that is, saving faith as a habit of the soul and 
the fullness of faith as a gracious state of the 
heart are the constant and not the variable 
qualities of Christian life. He who finds him- 
self without the faith which brings marvelous 
things to pass may continue to rejoice, if he 
still have the grace of faith. But he who 
finds the faith which brings salvation wanting 
may well repine ; for 

" Its work will not be done, 
Till we the crown obtain." 

3. The gift of faith is not essential to sal- 
vation or Christian character. 

It has no saving efficacy ; it is no ground 
of hope. The Savior warns us of the worth- 
lessness of a hope based on miracle-working 
faith : ' ■ Many shall say unto me in that day, 



120 FAITH PAPERS. 

Have we not prophesied in thy name, and In 
thy name done many wonderful works? but 
then will I profess unto them, I never knew 
you." When the gift of faith has been be- 
stowed, it does not necessarily bring new or 
deeper grace into the soul. One may be full 
of the grace of faith ; have all the mind that 
was in Christ ; be complete in all the will of 
God; be as saintly as Fletcher or Wesley, 
and not have the gift of faith. It does not 
follow because one is fully sanctified that he 
will have faith for healing, or other wonders. 
Yet not a few persons who know of the emi- 
nent piety of Dr. Steele or other holy people 
expect them while full of faith in all its gra- 
cious power to also possess the gift of faith 
which they may not at all have, because it has 
not been divinely conferred upon them. Not 
long since ^ noted man of God — anointed 
doubtless as a teacher of the deep things of 
spiritual life, and doing a wondrous work 
of evangelism, though a great cripple and 
sufferer — as he was entering for the first time 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 121 

a church where he was to labor, a brother 
present having heard that he was a man of 
faith, said to another : " Why do n't he throw 
away those canes ?" That remark only evinced 
how little that person knew of the divine 
method respecting faith revealed in the Scrip- 
tures ; that one may be full of faith, and yet 
not have the gift of faith, or might have the 
gift of faith for a work of evangelism and 
not for the healing of the body at all, as hap- 
pened to be the case which he commented 
upon. Since therefore the gift of faith is 
not obligatory, constant, or essential, it is in- 
ferior to the grace of faith. But while it un- 
derrates the ordinary graces of the Holy 
Spirit, it is not to be discarded or depreciated, 
but coveted ; for the apostle says, * i Covet 
earnestly the best gifts," and then enjoins this 
order : ' ' Follow after charity [love], and de- 
sire spiritual gifts ;" as though he would say: 
Attain saving and gracious faith, even unto 
perfection in love, then desire and expect if 
it be the will of God that he impart unto 



122 FAITH PAPERS. 

you the gift of faith with its accompanying 
endowments. 

III. Its origin. 

Faith can not exist in any form without 
evidence. The ground of saving faith is the 
written Word of the Lord promising salva- 
tion. As saving faith and faith in its full- 
ness are given sufficient testimony on which 
to rest, so also faith as an endowment is pro- 
vided a sure foundation by the illumination of 
the soul through the Holy Spirit, assuring it 
by the Word that God will do a given thing 
to, for, or by it. There are several con- 
ditions under which the gift of faith is be- 
stowed. 

i. When praying. 

He who is a man of prayer, lives much in 
the closet, takes every thing to the Lord in 
prayer, most frequently receives the gift of 
faith at some times and in some degrees. 
Many of the marked cases of healing, provi- 
dential deliverances, and unexpected con- 
versions which have occurred, came as the 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 123 

culmination of much submissive supplication, 
the Holy Spirit at last saying: " According 
to your faith be it unto you." 

2. When doing the Lord s work. 

Those who are abundant in labors for God. 
who are faithfully executing divine missions, 
are not unfrequently given a faith that is won- 
derful in its assurances and realizations. He 
who lives wholly consecrated to God will not 
be left long without works of faith. There 
will break in upon such a soul at times divine 
illuminations of God's purpose to use it as 
will beget a faith that shall achieve more than 
the removal of mountains. 

3. When in great emergencies. 

There come soul crises, providential straits, 
imminent perils, urgent necessities, and glo- 
rious possibilities, which make us cry out: 
"Who is sufficient for these things ?" It is 
at such junctures that the gift of faith is often 
imparted, and what hitherto seemed impos- 
sible, presumptuous, and irrational becomes 
credible and easy. 



124 FAITH PAPERS. 

4. When living in the fullness of the Spirit. 

The normal method of the operation of 
the Holy Spirit in the distribution of his gifts 
is to confer them upon those who are saved 
and baptized with the Holy Ghost. 

Doubtless, as the Church advances in spir- 
ituality, and the number of the fully saved mul- 
tiply, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in 
the gift of faith will become more frequent. 
This is not an uncommon endowment now, as 
some suppose. This gift has not been with- 
drawn from the Church. Every day is event- 
ful in some as veritable works of faith as in 
the apostolic times, and these marvels of 
faith are to increase as the dispensation of 
the Spirit advances toward its high noon of 
millennial glory. Praise the Lord ! 

The gift of faith, like every other work of 
the Holy Spirit, has its own witness in the 
human consciousness. They who have never 
felt it can easily deny it, theorize against it, 
and decry it, and be very good people too. 
But it is a real experience ; it is a white stone 



THE GIFT OF FAITH. 125 

which no man knoweth but he that receiv- 
eth it. Let us live for God ; pray without 
ceasing, keep our hearts fully saved, and 
then, if God may choose, he will work in us 
the endowment of faith ; for 

"TV gift of faith is all diviae/' 



f^ef Yertl* 



THE PRAYER Ot tAiVH. 

James v, 15, 16: "The prayer of faith shall save the 
sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. . . . The 
effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
much." Jude 20: "Praying in the Holy Ghost." 

The prayer of faith is a specific kind of 
prayer distinctively presented in the Scrip- 
tures, and so denominated, because it is an 
inevitable manifestation of the gift of faith. 

The apostle James, in giving inspired in- 
struction as to the method of procedure for 
the miraculous healing of the sick, says, 
"The prayer of faith shall save the sick/' and 
then elucidates what constitutes such prayer 
by renaming it effectual, fervent prayer, and 
by presenting the praying of Elijah as a 

specimen of it. There has been in all ages 
126 



THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 127 

of the Church, and there is now, a current 
belief, well supported by the warrant of 
Scripture and of Christian experience, in a 
kind of prayer styled prevailing prayer, which 
brings to pass results that prayer, in its ordi- 
nary offices, does not, and the vital factor 
in such prayer is the extraordinary faith which 
originates and accompanies it. The prayer 
of faith being a thing so peculiarly of its own 
kind in the realm of the spiritual experiences 
of faith, an extended treatment of it is essen- 
tial to making intelligible the whole life of 
faith. Several discriminations respecting the 
prayer of faith are necessary. 

I. The prayer of faith is a work of the 
Holy Ghost. 

It is one of the offices of the Holy Spirit 
to inspire in the hearts of believers prevailing 
prayer. Romans, viii, 26: "We know not 
what we should pray for as we ought, but the 
Spirit itself maketh intercession for [in] us 
with groanings which can not be uttered." 
It is by the agency of the Holy Spirit alone 



128 FAITH PAPERS. \ 

that any soul is spiritually empowered to offer 
effectual, fervent prayer. There is a suppli- 
cation in the spirit and a praying in the Holy 
Ghost, as such. Both the Authorized Ver- 
sion and the New Revision fail to convey the 
true meaning of the original in James v, 16. 
The Authorized Version reads: "The effect- 
ual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
much. " The word fervent is superfluous, and 
the word effectual makes the sentence mere tau- 
tology, saying no more than that ' ' an effectual 
prayer is effectual. ,, Neither word is found 
in, nor suggested by, the original. The New 
Revision gives it thus : * ' The supplication of 
a righteous man availeth much," which is 
weaker still, and simply translates the word 
deasis — supplication or prayer — without any 
rendering whatever of the attached participle 
in the original. The original reads: "The 
prayer {deasis) of a righteous man, being in- 
energized (energoutnend), avails much;" that 
is, prayer inwrought and empowered by 
the Holy Ghost in the soul of a righteous 



THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 129 

man avails much — becomes prevailing, Such 
prayer as one has said, "is an inner prayer 
framed within our prayer ; a divine voice 
within our voice of supplication ; God offering 
to himself the petitions we desire of him. " 
The order in which the Holy Spirit works in 
the soul the prayer of faith is clearly revealed. 
First, he illuminates it, helping its spiritual 
inapprehension respecting what it ought to 
pray for beyond the sphere of gracious bless- 
ings. The righteous man knows that he 
ought to pray for wisdom, strength, comfort, 
etc., for these and like blessings are promised 
to him ; but whether he ought to pray for 
recovery from sickness, or for deliverance 
from temporal ills, or for some other super- 
natural results, he does not know. But when 
he should pray for these things the Holy 
Spirit begins to reveal them to him as allow- 
able, and that it is the will of God to grant 
them, so that he is able to pray not as hith- 
erto, "If it be thy will;" but in the full per- 
suasion that it is God's will ; for the Spirit now 



130 FAITH PAPERS. 

maketh intercession for him according to the 
will of God. Then, accompanying this illu- 
mination, there springs up in the soul an in- 
satiable desire for these things which the soul 
would not hitherto ardently desire, lest it 
might not maintain its submissiveness to God's 
will. But now the unequivocal assurance by 
the Holy Spirit that it is his will to do these 
things for it makes 

"It break out in strong desire.*' 
It groans, not in agony, not in doubt, not 
in uncertainty, but in heart-longings. This 
groaning which enters into the experience of 
prevailing prayer is a depth of desire which 
transcends utterance, and which the most im- 
passioned vocal supplication could but faintly 
express. Simultaneously with the movement 
of the Holy Ghost, which brings this illumi- 
nation and mighty desire, there comes an 
assurance of faith, so as that the soul knows 
ft has the petitions it desires of him ; it rests 
implicitly, awaiting the realization of th^ 
things prayed for. Those who have found 



TEE PRA YER OF FAITH. 131 

wrought in them the prayer of faith by the 
Holy Ghost will easily recognize its genesis 
as here delineated. The heart actuated by 
prayer as the immediate gift of the Holy 
Ghost is in the most exalted and empow- 
ered state possible in the body. It burns 
in a threefold flame of divine illumination, 
holy desire, and fervent anticipation. When 
this spirit of prayer seizes the soul, whether 
in the hush of the night watches, in the soli- 
tudes of the closet, or in the public walks of 
life, it irresistibly carries its suit. 

Such a frame of prayer is not at our com- 
mand. We can not lift ourselves into it by 
any dint of effort or protracted reflection. It 
comes upon devout souls by the inspiration 
of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit, in his 
office of inspiring prevailing prayer, is no 
doubt now, as ever, in continuous operation 
upon the hearts of believers. There are as 
mighty men of prayer among God's people 
to-day as ever heretofore, those of whom 
Eliiah was but the prototype, yet unsuspected 



132 FAITH PAPERS. 

and unrecognized as being the Lord's special 
agents for the operation of his gracious and 
providential plans. But while there are many 
to-day who are occasionally or continuously 
baptized with this spirit of prayer, there is a 
promised prayer- Pentecost to visit the Church 
as prophetically discerned and proclaimed by 
Zechariah when there was disclosed to him, 
under the spirit of inspiration, the divine 
purpose, saying: "I will pour out upon the 
house of David and upon the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of suppli- 
cation." When that outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit shall come upon Zion, as come it will, 
ushering in the grand Pentecostal era of sup- 
plication, then shall not a few only, but the 
whole Church pray in the Holy Ghost. 

II. The prayer of faith invariably succeeds. 

Success in prayer is more than access in 
prayer. Access is conscious audience with 
God ; success is getting what you ask for. 
Paul had access to God when he prayed in 
repeated supplication for the healing of his 



\ 



THE PR A YER OF FAITH. 133 

body in the removal of the thorn in the flesh ; 
but his prayer did not have success. The 
thorn was not removed ; the cure was not 
granted ; and simply because he did not 
offer the prayer of faith for it, and his lack 
of faith arose from his having no inwrought 
persuasion that it was the will of God that he 
should be healed. As access in prayer is a 
conscious, blessed experience, so also is suc- 
cess in prayer; it is a conscious, indubitable 
persuasion that the thing asked for is granted. 
When the saintly Fletcher of Madeley was 
lying in the last stages of consumption, and 
his condition was pronounced hopeless, John 
Wesley visited him, fell upon his knees at 
his bedside, and began to pray for his re- 
covery. He had uttered only a few petitions 
when he sprang to his feet, and exclaimed: 
1 ' He shall not die, but shall live and declare 
the works of the Lord." Wesley knew he 
had succeeded. Fletcher recovered, and lived 
eight years to do the most effective work of 
his long and useful life. The prayer of faith 



134 FAITH PAPERS. 

does avail much. It brings to pass much that 
is not possible to prayer in its ordinary exer- 
cise. Prayer, in its usual offices, avails for 
all that is essential to spiritual life, growth in 
grace, and the ordinary blessing of Provi- 
dence, but does not avail for special interven- 
tions in behalf of souls and the Church. 

These results are only possible to inspira- 
tional prayer, or prayer in the Holy Ghost, 
which is distinctively the prayer of faith. The 
Tyndall prayer-test, insisted on a few years 
since, was unscientific and unreasonable, inas- 
much as it proposed that any company of 
righteous persons who might choose should 
go into the ward of a hospital and pray for 
the recovery of a hopelessly sick patient, and, 
if immediate recovery should ensue, it would 
demonstrate the efficacy of prayer for results 
beyond the ordinary course of nature. In 
that proposition, however, there was not a 
single condition upon which the Bible teaches 
that God will heal the sick in answer to 
prayer. To have been a proposition com- 



THE PRA YER OF FAITH. 135 

passing the Scriptural doctrine of prayer for 
supernatural results, it should have allowed 
that the suppliants must be a company of 
devout persons, consciously persuaded that it 
was the will of God to heal that patient, and 
believing that he would do it in answer to 
their prayers ; or, in other words, it ought to 
have been a challenge to some person or per- 
sons who were consciously endowed with the 
gift of prayer for the healing of that patient. 
Inasmuch as it is not promised in God's Word 
that prayer, in its ordinary office, shall accom- 
plish such supernatural results, but only prayer 
as a specific endowment of the Holy Ghost, 
the so-called test was no test at all. 

The prayer of faith always succeeds. A 
most touching spectacle of prayer occurred 
seven years since when, for almost three months, 
all Christendom was on its knees before God 
in supplication for the recovery of President 
Garfield. Yet he did not recover, and many 
good people began to say : ' * What profit 
is it that we pray unto Him?" And the 



136 FAITH PAPERS. 

skeptics said: "Prayer is a failure, as we 
have always held." Was all that prayei 
useless ? No ; the spirit of it was eminently 
proper and Scriptural. The people did as 
they should have done ; they, with prayer 
and thanksgiving, let their requests be made 
known unto God. They did say in thei( 
closets, at their family altars, and from then 
sanctuaries : " If it be thy will, let our Chief 
Magistrate live." All the prayer offered in 
that spirit was useful, but it was not suc- 
cessful ; it did not avail for the President's 
recovery. And why? Because in all the 
prayers prayed no petitioner offered the prayer 
of faith. No one had the persuasion it would 
be done ; no one apprehended that it was the 
will of God that it should be done. Every 
one said: "If it be thy will." But faith 
never can build on a contingency, or an if; 
its ground is always a divine assurance, given 
either by the Word or the Holy Spirit of 
God. Had there come into the heart of the 
most ignorant, obscure freedman, who was a 



THE PR A YER OF FAITH. 137 

child of God, the assurance that it was the 
will of God to restore President Garfield, if he 
would believe, that humble soul might have, 
and doubtless would have, prayed the prayer 
of faith, and according to his supplication it 
would have been done unto him. For the 
prayer of faith never fails ; it prospers in the 
thing whereunto it is sent. 

Its answer is specific in kind in respect 
to the asking, while in degree most frequently 
it is above that which we think or ask. 
Elijah asked for rain ; it came not in showers, 
however, but in torrents. Hannah asked for a 
son ; he was given, but was a mighty prophet 
as well. Hezekiah plead for life ; it was given, 
not in a temporary respite from death, but in 
fifteen years of regal life. The simplicity of 
the prayer of faith, in its inception compared 
with its effectiveness, is marvelous. Said a 
man to one noted for the results of his pray- 
ing : * ' I suppose you struggle a great deal in 
prayer." "O no," he replied, "I scarcely 
know when I pray. When I desire any thing 



138 FAITH PAPERS. 

of the Lord I just look up to him in my soul 
and say, ' Thou wilt do it, ' and feel that it will 
be done." When the soul is given the spirit 
of prevailing prayer there is fulfilled the prom- 
ise (Isaiah lxv, 24), "And it shall come to 
pass [in the dispensation of the Holy Ghost] 
that before they call I will answer; and 
while they are yet speaking I will hear;" that 
is, the Holy Spirit shall inbreathe a spirit of 
prayer so quickly as that the soul shall re- 
ceive the thing desired before the petition for 
it can be framed into words, and that while it 
is putting it in words God will be doing for 
it the thing desired. 

It is no uncommon experience for a de- 
vout heart just to think of something it 
would have of the Lord, and while forming 
the purpose to ask it of the Lord, to be made 
conscious that it is granted, and the succeed- 
ing prayer for it to become rather praise that 
it shall be done. Praise the Lord, O my 
soul! The phenomenal manifestations of im- 
passioned utterance, vehement gesticulation, 



THE PR A YER OF FAITH. 1*69 

or ecstatic emotions may attend or not the 
prayer of faith, but are no essential part of 
its power. When Elijah opened the windows 
of heaven there was no demonstration, only 
a prostrate, voiceless form, and but for the 
apostle James's allusion to the wonderful 
event we should not have known that he 
prayed at all. The prayer of faith enters the 
heart by the inspiration of the Almighty, and 
never fails to rise as high as its source in 
almighty results. The prayer of faith being 
itself supernatural, what wonder is it that it 
accomplishes supernatural results. 

III. The prayer of faith is possible only on 
certain conditions of heart. 

1. He who offers it must be righteous. 
1 ' The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous 
man availeth much." "God heareth not 
sinners, but if any man be a worshiper of 
God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. " 
God will not trust the gift of prevailing prayer 
with those who are discreditable in character 
or superficial in piety. The great men of 



140 faith papers. 

prayer, from Abraham to William Taylor, 
have been godly, righteous men. 

Indeed, a consciousness of being right 
with God is an indispensable qualification for 
successful prayer at all. Hence the apostle 
says: "Whatsoever we ask we receive of 
him, because we keep his commandments, 
and do those things which are pleasing in his 
sight." 

If religious character is essential on the 
ordinary plane of prayer, how much more 
vital in the higher altitudes of supplication? 
It is only holy men whom God calls up into 
the mount alone with himself. Peter, James, 
and John were taken up by the Master to the 
heights of Tabor to learn the lesson of prevail- 
ing prayer, because spiritually eligible for it. 
A low state of Christian experience and a 
life of imperfect devotion to God disqualify 
us completely for becoming recipients of the 
gift of prayer. Not all who have been noted 
for piety have been called to be pre-eminent 
in prayer, but none have been noted for 



THE PRAYER OF FAITH. 141 

prayer who had not been pre-eminent for 
piety. 

2. He who offers the prayer of faith must 
have faith in prayer. It is possible for one to 
be righteous and yet lack a profound faith in 
prayer itself. There are good men who have 
no adequate apprehension of the vital relation 
prayer has to God's plans and purposes; who 
are not impressed with its immense worth ; 
who think of it as a mere exercise, useful to 
the individual, rather than being a principle 
of the divine government ; a law by which 
God has chosen to effect certain results. 
Hence they are skeptical of prayer as a real 
power, and appreciate it only as a gracious 
movement of the heart toward God. Now, 
God never bestows, even upon a righteous 
man, the power of prevailing prayer, who, for 
any cause, is incredulous respecting the lar- 
gest possibilities of prayer as being at present 
available. Faith in prayer is indispensable to 
praying in faith. The little child that is able 
to comprehend the simple precepts and prom- 



142 FAITH PAPERS. 

ises of God's Word in respect to prayer may 
have a faith in prayer which will render it eli- 
gible to offer, as many a child has done, the 
prayer of faith. Indeed, these things are hid- 
den from the wise and prudent, and are revealed 
unto babes. So the humble go on believing 
in prayer, and praying, believing, and see 
wonderful things, while the opinionated, skep- 
tical, wise, good people go on praying, know- 
ing none of these things in respect to prayer. 
3. He who offers the prayer of faith must 
have the spirit of prayer. "The habit of 
prayer/ ' says Mr. Spurgeon truly, "is good, 
but the spirit of prayer is better." This 
comprises an inclination to pray; a fondness 
for prayer ; a continuous drawing out of the 
soul in prayer; so that, as one has said, "I 
am not fifteen minutes without supplication 
rising in my soul to God. " It is taking every 
thing to God in prayer, the soul sponta- 
neously looking to God in care, duty, grief, 
service. One who has come into the spirit 
of holy communion with God will be fitted 



THE PRA YER OF FAITH. 143 

for the descent of the power of prevailing 
prayer upon him when God may choose to 
confer it upon him, as he doubtless will, at 
some times and in some measure. We do 
not believe any one can long live in the prac- 
tice and spirit of prayer without soon or 
late having imparted to his soul the ability to 
offer prevailing prayer for results which are 
beyond the reach of prayer as a gracious exer- 
cise. Here is the profession of faith which 
all devout hearts make that have been bap- 
tized with the spirit of prayer. 

"This is the confidence that we have in 
him, that if we ask any thing according to his 
will he heareth us ; and if we know that he 
hears us, whatsoever we ask we know we have 
the petitions that we desired of him." 

Having such a spirit of prayer, the soul 
awaits in exultant expectation for God to do 
for it exceeding abundantly above all it now 
thinks or asks. That is, that God will both 
enlarge its asking and its receiving- as well. 
This spirit of prayer is the only soil in whicl: 



144 FAITH PAPERS. 

God will plant the gift of faith whence springs 
the prayer of faith. 

Dear reader, may you live in the spirit of 
grace and supplication, and so be fitted to 
receive of the Lord the gift of prevailing 
prayer ! 







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